


aurora

by ophelialilies



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe – Ballet Academy, Alternate Universe – Dance Academy, Ballet, Ballet Dancer Lee Donghyuck, Ballet Dancer Mark Lee, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Romance, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:26:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24858349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ophelialilies/pseuds/ophelialilies
Summary: the academy’s production ofLa Belle au Bois Dormantbrings together first year prodigy Lee Donghyuck and the equally gifted Mark Lee in what becomes so much more than just ballet.(for how can you pull apart two souls when they’ve already become one?)
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 330
Kudos: 649





	1. adage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the first chapter of aurora, _adage_. an adage is a slow, soft, sustained, and controlled movement.
> 
> this story is inspired by this beautiful [drawing](https://twitter.com/withallstars/status/1271540251392172032) by elo. thank you for letting me write this story! ✨since completion, another reader and artist has kindly drawn donghyuck! you can find her beautiful work [here](https://twitter.com/lucidspace05/status/1301217716813148162)!
> 
> thank you so much for everyone who was excited about this story on twitter, i'm so excited to finally share it with you all! and a huge thank you to the wonderful [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter!
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is la valse d'amélie (version piano)! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsKEKqXRTbA) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/6URm2kt7SV1bXWTxNQtVYR?si=t1v7PxRWQFebBMW85PuXfA).
> 
> happy reading and i'll see you at the end! 🌷

His suitcase hits the pavement as Donghyuck shuts the cab door behind him, only vaguely aware of the vehicle taking off and disappearing into the depths of the city because he’s so entranced by the building in front of him. It’s the academy, no doubt, but somehow it manages to look even more beautiful than Donghyuck remembers.

It’s a large building, all white arches and glass ceilings, glinting in the early morning sun in a way that makes it look impossibly golden. In front of the building and behind the main gates is a courtyard, a large magnolia tree flowering at the centre. 

Students of a similar age to Donghyuck bustle around, a hoard of noise and excited energy that translates in the way they walk with intent or laugh a little too loud. There’s a certain energy to it, as the students disperse around the courtyard and disappear beyond the walls of the academy, carrying their bags in one hand and a dream in the other. 

At the base of the tree sits a boy, his face concealed by the splayed pages of a book spread wide beneath his fingers.

Donghyuck inhales the floral scent dancing in the air and smiles to himself. It feels like he’s finally home.

It turns out that the inside of the academy is no different. As Donghyuck climbs the staircases and follows the long hallways of the building where students live, he finds himself lost in the buzz of it all. There are people running and skipping in every direction, unpacking their things and chatting excitedly with whom Donghyuck can only assume are their new roommates.

Eventually he finds his way to the hallway his room is in, and he finds himself gasping slightly when he sees it. It looks the same as the others, wide and white-walled, with the occasional glass window. Except it’s different, too. 

The glass windows look down on the courtyard below, allowing the warm eastern sun to filter through, casting golden light along the floor and walls of the hallway. There’s a slight breeze outside too, and Donghyuck watches in fascination as loose magnolia flowers are caught in the wind, dancing on the current of air as they sway past the window.

Suddenly two students bustle past and that snaps Donghyuck out of his reverie, but not before he allows himself one more moment of appreciation for the beautiful space he’s now able to call home. He picks up the pace again, only walking a few more metres before he finds a wooden door labelled _room 403._

It’s a tall door, made of a rich golden brown wood that reminds him of his room at his grandmother’s home in the countryside. Donghyuck raises his hand, curled in a light fist to knock at the door. 

There’s a shuffling sound from inside and not a moment later the door swings open. Behind it stands a petite boy, who reminds Donghyuck more of a mouse than a human. His eyes are warm and his hair is a subtle shade of lilac as he blinks, his lips curling into a welcoming smile.

“Hi, you must be Donghyuck,” the small boy says, stepping aside to let Donghyuck enter the room. That’s when said boy realises that he isn’t _that_ small – in fact, they’re practically the same height – it’s just that his frame is so petite. 

“Yes, that’s me,” Donghyuck nods, sending the boy a shy smile as he closes the door and leaves Donghyuck a moment to take the room in. It isn’t that large, but it’s enough space, with a single bed leaning against each wall. At the centre is a large window, and Donghyuck delights to find that it has an even clearer view of the courtyard below.

“It’s a nice view, right?” the boy asks, and Donghyuck almost jumps because in the few moments that had passed he had almost forgotten he was there. 

“It’s beautiful,” Donghyuck sighs, leaving his suitcase by the bed that has yet to be touched to walk over to the window. It’s open, allowing the subtle breeze to drift into the room. Donghyuck is just about to turn away when he notices that that same boy still sits at the base of the tree, just as absorbed in reading his book as he had been before. He must not be a first year, Donghyuck realises, which explains why he isn’t busy unpacking and settling in.

“I’m Renjun, by the way,” Donghyuck finally turns to find the boy extending a hand for him to shake. He does shake it, a smile on his own face. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Renjun.”

He and Renjun, it turns out, get along very well. They fall into comfortable conversation as Renjun sits on his bed, swinging his legs over the edge and watching while Donghyuck unpacks. It turns out that the other boy is a dancer from an overseas city, who moved here to pursue dancing at the academy. It’s not a story too dissimilar from his own, and they find an easy bond over their passion for their artform, over the fear and exhilaration of chasing a dream, and even over the inevitable criticism that always comes with it.

Donghyuck has just about finished unpacking when the clock strikes nine, and they both know what that means. 

Renjun wears an excited smile, one that matches the energy fluttering in the pit of Donghyuck’s stomach, when he says, “I suppose it’s time for our first class.”

Donghyuck hums in agreement, biting his lip in a way he knows is a nervous habit of his. He feels both anxious and excited, a kind of duality he’s all too familiar with. He gets this way before every performance, but it’s been a while since he felt this way before a class. (That’s just the effect of the academy, he supposes).

He and Renjun change into their white leotards and black leggings, the standard uniform specified by the academy, and Donghyuck eyes himself in the single floor length mirror hoisted on one wall. He’s always loved the feeling of wearing ballet clothes, because it’s as if there’s nothing restricting the body from full freedom of movement, as if nothing is holding him back from doing the one thing that he loves.

He knows he looks good, too. His whole life Donghyuck has been complimented for his dancer’s body. His long legs, small waist, the extension of his arms and the curves and shapes he can create just with his body. But for Donghyuck, it had always been about more than just appearances. To him, his body is both the brush and the canvas. It is his instrument.

“Are you ready?” asks Renjun from near the door where he’s watching Donghyuck. That’s when he realises he’s still eyeing himself in the mirror, and he turns to find an amused glint in the other boy’s eye. He’s grateful that Renjun doesn’t say anything more, because it all feels rather too embarrassing to explain.

“Yep,” Donghyuck pulls the strap of his duffel bag over his shoulder, the familiar heavy weight of a water bottle and dance shoes settling over his body as Renjun opens the door. They enter the hallway, somehow impossibly more alive with noise and motion than before, except this time all the students are heading in the same direction.

As they exit the dorm building and cross the courtyard toward the building of the academy where the studios are, Renjun asks Donghyuck about his audition.

“What was your experience like?”

Donghyuck thinks for a moment, pondering on the day only a few months ago that, at the time, seemed so monumental. “It was everything and nothing like I thought it would be,” Donghyuck concludes that that’s the best way to describe it. “I was terrified and exhilarated at the same time. I remember feeling like my heart was going to leap out of my chest.” 

Renjun laughs at that, clearly sharing the sentiment. They step through the door of the new building, this one even larger than the dorms. It’s a huge space with a large hallway down the middle and doors spilling into studio after studio on either side. Donghyuck’s ears are overwhelmed by the welcoming sound of classical music, an onslaught of violin and piano coming from each room and at different tempos.

“But, I also remember that the only thing that grounded me was the feeling that it was right,” Donghyuck realises the truth in his words as he says them, as if only understanding that now. It had just felt so _right_. To be dancing in a room full of bodies that come alive with just the same amount of passion for movement as he does. 

“I felt exactly that same way,” Renjun responds after a moment, sending Donghyuck a small smile that says he understands. Donghyuck returns it.

They reach a studio toward the end of the hall with many people standing outside waiting expectantly. There’s a buzz of nervous energy that screams first years, and that’s how he and Renjun know that they’re in the right place. They’ve just taken their spot at the back of the line, leaning against the wall and talking amongst themselves, when someone calls Renjun’s name.

Donghyuck turns toward the sound to find a boy with a warm smile, warmer eyes and a head of even warmer brown hair approaching, a boy with vibrant blue hair trailing not too far behind him. 

“Jeno!” Renjun calls out, embracing the boy Donghyuck assumes to be Jeno in a hug once he’s close. “How are you?”

“I’m good, it’s lovely to see you again!” Jeno responds enthusiastically, and his eyes light up in a way that reminds Donghyuck of a puppy.

“You too, Jen,” Renjun says with a bright smile. “This is Donghyuck, my roommate,” he gestures toward Donghyuck, and Jeno’s kind eyes turn to find him. 

“Hi Donghyuck, it’s nice to meet you!”

“Likewise,” Donghyuck says politely, smiling when the other boy’s face lights up. 

“This is Jaemin,” Jeno says, and just as he does, the boy with blue hair steps out from behind him with a smile on his lips. 

“Hello,” Renjun says, his voice suspiciously softer this time and Donghyuck sends him a strange look before turning back to Jaemin to greet him.

They chat amongst themselves for a few moments, and Donghyuck quickly learns that Renjun knows Jeno from back home. They danced at the same school there, and auditioned for the academy together, too. Donghyuck also learns that Jaemin is Jeno’s roommate, and delights in watching the way Renjun seems to blush every time Jaemin’s eyes land on him. 

That’s something he’ll have to press Renjun about later though, because soon an older woman with sharp cheekbones dressed in all black steps out from the studio and beckons them inside.

That same older woman turns out to be one of their teachers. 

All of the students, including the four boys, enter the studio and Donghyuck takes a moment to bask in its grandiosity. He had thought his studio back home was grand, but this is something else. There’s an air of history to the space, as if the wooden curves of the barre or the lines carved into the floor by feet might tell a story of many who had danced here before.

They take a spot on the floor, and Donghyuck roughly estimates that there are about forty or so first years. They fit in the room comfortably, considering the studio is so large, and the teacher takes position in front of them.

“Welcome to the academy. Congratulations for being accepted, and remember that this is where the hard work begins,” her voice is stern and her presence commands attention, but Donghyuck can see a friendly warmth twinkling in her eye too. She reminds him a little of his first ballet teacher, and that makes a warm feeling bloom in his chest.

First she walks them through their schedules and then what is expected of them as students, but Donghyuck only half listens because if he’s honest with himself, he familiarised himself with the functioning of the academy when he was much, much smaller. Back at a time when living and dancing here seemed so far away, and all he could do was occupy himself with fantasies and thoughts of what it might be like.

He does tune back in, though, when the teacher says something that sparks his interest. 

“Arguably most significant of all, this year the academy will be putting on its first production of _La Belle au Bois Dormant_ , or Sleeping Beauty, if you will,” her voice resonates throughout the room, echoing off the walls, and Donghyuck swears he feels every other student in the room perk up at that the same way he did.

It’s every student’s dream, especially the young and bright-eyed first years, to perform in the annual production as more than just an extra. Donghyuck allows himself to muse for a moment even performing a main role. A first year lead is rare. In fact, so rare that it seems more like an unrealistic idea than a possibility. (Except, as the teacher continues to talk, Donghyuck finds himself more and more fascinated by the idea. He wonders for a moment if he could be one of the few to make that idea come true).

“It is encouraged that first years audition for a role, as it is a fantastic opportunity to make a name for yourself within the academy–” the teacher cuts herself off mid sentence, and for a moment Donghyuck doesn’t understand, until he follows her line of sight to where something – or rather, someone – has entered the room.

Donghyuck (along with everyone else in the room, he suspects) turns to look at the newcomer, half expecting it to be some late and flustered first year. What Donghyuck finds is something else entirely. It’s the boy from beneath the magnolia tree.

How Donghyuck knows, he isn’t sure. He hadn’t been able to see the boy’s face then like he can now, but there’s something in the way he holds himself, in the enigmatic air that he exudes, that feels familiar. Donghyuck’s eyes are drawn to him like a moth to the light.

Unlike all of the first years, and everyone else in the academy Donghyuck has seen so far, the boy is without the standard white leotard. Instead, his is a stark black, as dark as the hair that is swept back off his forehead, revealing a face that looks more like the sketch of a boy than someone real. His eyes are dark and his lashes long, and his body line is as much a dancer’s as Donghyuck has ever seen.

He traces the boy’s shape, from the broadness of his shoulders to the curve of his waist where the dark leotard disappears beneath just as dark tights. Donghyuck looks lower, at his long legs and perfect turn out before glancing back up again, only to find – much to his embarrassment – that his eyes meet with the other boy because he’s looking at him, too.

Heat creeps to Donghyuck’s cheeks as he feels himself blush at being caught, but he can’t really find it in himself to care because he’s never seen someone so beautiful before. The other boy doesn’t seem to mind either, judging by the unreadable but not unfriendly look in his eye that Donghyuck can’t quite decipher.

“Ah, welcome,” the teacher exclaims excitedly and her voice brings Donghyuck back to the moment. He looks away from the other boy for the first time in what feels like an eternity, to find the teacher looking at the other boy with a fondness that hadn’t been there earlier. “Come on in.”

The other boy gives her a nod and a smile before entering deeper into the room. “Mark is here with us today as he kindly offered to help monitor the new first years.”

As he moves, Donghyuck’s eyes are once again drawn to him. Everything about him is confident and precise, attractive and alluring as if he had only just stepped out of a painting and straight onto the dance floor. Everyone else seems to feel the same way, because as he moves across the space to stand by the teacher’s side, the students whisper excited words Donghyuck can’t hear.

“That’s Mark Lee,” Renjun murmurs as he nudges Donghyuck’s side gently. Either Jaemin or Jeno, Donghyuck can’t tell which, hums in agreement from behind him. And _oh,_ Donghyuck realises. _That’s_ Mark Lee. 

Donghyuck knows the name. Of course he does. The infamous prodigy of the academy, the boy Donghyuck watched perform on television from the comfort of his living room when he was only nine. The same boy he saw once only a few years later when he came to the academy with his mother to see it for the first time. Just a glimpse of dark hair and a flurry of controlled movement. Moving as if he were both at one with and constantly in battle against the laws of physics.

He looks different now, though. A grown up version of the boy Donghyuck remembers.

The teacher wraps up the rest of her introductions and soon the barres are being moved to the centre of the studio. Donghyuck feels nervous energy flow through his veins, more akin to adrenaline than butterflies as he prepares to dance for the first time in front of his new cohort. (And also in front of the academy prodigy, his mind unhelpfully supplies). 

He takes his position at the barre, Renjun by his side and Jeno and Jaemin in front. He sends them all a small encouraging smile as the pianist in the corner of the studio, who Donghyuck had somehow not managed to notice earlier, begins to play a slow piece.

And it’s as if everything changes when Donghyuck hears the first note. 

All tension melts out of him, the butterflies fluttering in his stomach coming to a stop as he begins to move. It’s always like this for him, closer to a spiritual experience than just dancing, and this time is no different. As he moves through the positions with all the other dancers at the barres – eyes fluttering closed, arms extending, lower back arching, neck softening, grounding himself in his body – his mind goes still. 

It’s a state of flow, moving through the motions as if he is a puppet and the pianist a puppeteer, orchestrating his movements as if spurred on by magic. 

Except, there’s something dancing on the edge of Donghyuck’s consciousness. Something small but nonetheless there, the only thing preventing Donghyuck from fully letting go and submitting to the music. He can’t quite place what that is until he opens his eyes to turn to the other side and finds Mark Lee’s eyes fixed on him. Unwavering and intense. Simply watching.

Donghyuck stills, only for a moment before coming back to life, catching up as he is now a beat behind the rest of the dancers. He hadn’t thought anything could interrupt his flow once he’s dancing, but apparently that isn’t entirely true.

He can feel Mark’s eyes still on him as the pianist picks up the pace and they move into the next sequence. Donghyuck tries not to stiffen under the other boy’s gaze, tries to pretend that he’s not watching, but it’s undeniable that his eyes have not once left Donghyuck since they started dancing.

That remains true as they put the barres at the back of the room, clearing space for floorwork. There’s too many of them to do one exercise at the same time, so the teacher splits them into four smaller groups and they take turns performing the sequence across the floor. Due to proximity Donghyuck ends up in the fourth group with Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin and a handful of other students he hasn’t yet met.

He studies Mark carefully as the first three groups take their turns. What he finds surprises him – Mark doesn’t spare each dancer a glance for more than a few moments, and his gaze is much more readable than when he had been looking at Donghyuck. His eyebrows furrow when he spots a mistake and he crosses his arms when someone is a beat behind. 

With that in mind, Donghyuck takes his position with the others when it’s his group’s turn. He moves through the motions fluidly, trying to not to think about the boy he knows is watching him from across the room. 

Halfway through the dance, Donghyuck has an idea and decides to test it out. As he pirouettes, a turn that lands him facing the corner where Mark stands, he opens his eyes to catch Mark in the act. He pauses there for a moment, taking a beat to rebuild momentum for the next few steps, meeting the other boy’s stare.

Except Mark doesn’t look away, either. He seems to feel no shame in Donghyuck knowing he’s watching, and that realisation alone makes Donghyuck feel slightly breathless.

With his heart beating a little too fast, Donghyuck finishes the sequence alongside his friends and the others, moving in tandem to the notes which spill from the grand piano in the other corner of the room. 

As they walk toward the back of the group once more for the next sequence, Donghyuck realises he hasn’t once taken a glance at the teacher. At least, not since they started dancing. Suddenly he feels like an idiot because he really should have been paying attention to her and her reaction, considering she is to be his instructor for the next few months.

And yet he had found himself so entirely distracted. Donghyuck shakes his head at himself and prepares for the next exercise.

Another hour passes like that before the clock above the mirrors strikes midday. Donghyuck chances a glance out one of the windows to find other students have already spilled out of the building and are either seated around the courtyard or heading toward the dining hall. The sun is shining and the sky is a bright blue, completely empty save for a few hesitant clouds and some birds flying overhead. 

“That will be the end of class. Good work, everyone,” the teacher announces, and there’s a collective sigh as everybody moves toward the edges of the room to rehydrate. Donghyuck does too, relishing in the way his body feels like jelly, completely stretched and used in that way that he loves. He sighs pleasantly, knowing he’ll sleep well tonight. 

Renjun follows closely behind him, lifting his water bottle from near Donghyuck’s feet and taking a long sip. As he does, though, he watches Donghyuck with a – for lack of a better word – _suspicious_ look in his eye.

“What?” Donghyuck asks after he finishes his own sip. Renjun swallows and smiles, a smile that this time looks much less friendly and much more smug.

“Mark Lee was watching you the entire time,” he singsongs, coquettish as he takes another swig of water. Donghyuck wants to deny it, wants to say _no he wasn’t, what do you mean?_ But he can’t, because that would be a lie. If anything though, he’s glad to have his suspicions concerned. And he’d be lying to himself if he said that hearing those words from Renjun didn’t make butterflies flutter in his stomach.

He chances a glance over his shoulder at the boy in question, who appears to be engrossed in conversation with the teacher. Mark looks different like this, because the serious expression has disappeared, replaced instead by a carefree smile as he laughs at whatever the teacher is saying to him. It’s so different to the intensely focused version of Mark Lee he had seen only moments before. (It’s also very endearing, he thinks to himself, but he doesn’t allow himself to entertain the thought for long).

“I noticed too, but I wasn’t sure. I thought I might have been imagining it,” Donghyuck admits with a shy smile as he and Renjun pack away their things and lift their bags over their shoulders. Jeno waves to them from across the room and starts to approach.

“No, I saw it too. It was like he couldn’t take his eyes off you,” Renjun agrees, and now they’re both watching Mark, studying him curiously. 

“Donghyuck!” Jaemin calls once he’s close enough for them to hear him. There’s a bright smile on his face and an electric look in his eye, and his now-messy hair reminds Donghyuck of the sky outside. Then, in a much quieter voice, Jaemin whisper-shouts “Mark Lee had his eyes on you the whole class!” 

Donghyuck mock punches his arm for that, feeling a blush rise to his cheeks because he definitely hadn’t been imagining things, then, if Jaemin noticed too. His suspicions have been confirmed, but what they mean, he isn’t sure. 

Ignoring the way Renjun and Jaemin laugh and try to tease him, Donghyuck ushers them out of the room, partly because he’s suddenly aware of the empty pit in his stomach that signals lunchtime, and partly because he has no idea what to say and feels rather uncomfortably flustered. 

As they leave the room, only a few bodies within the mass of students trying to exit the studio, the teacher shouts out a reminder over the noise.

“Don’t forget, everyone! Auditions for the production are next week!”

As they enter the hallway, stepping out into the courtyard to head toward the dining hall, the others talk of academy gossip. Donghyuck isn’t exactly sure how there’s already gossip, and how they already know about it, but he’s content with just listening in amusement. There’s already stories of roommates walking in on each other naked, to which Donghyuck finds himself laughing in the way that makes you clutch at your abdomen in pain. (The horrifying image of Renjun naked briefly comes to mind and Donghyuck has to work hard to shake it out, paling at the thought).

Then Donghyuck finds himself not saying much, and it’s because his mind keeps wandering to other things. 

Donghyuck’s heart flutters in his chest, as the image of him auditioning alone, a room of academy teachers and a panel of judges comes to mind. And it continues to flutter as his mind drifts further, to a particular boy with dark hair and intense eyes, watching him across the room. 

The same boy who sits beneath the magnolia tree. The same boy who danced behind a pixelated television screen so many years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked the first chapter, please let me know what you thought below! i'm so excited to finally be sharing this story with you !!
> 
> this [carrd](https://issuesintheworld.carrd.co/) summarises everything that's going on in the world right now (there's a lot, i know) and is really helpful for finding petitions. please consider signing one, even just that makes a difference. but also remember to take care of yourself, too! that's the most important thing. 
> 
> thank you for reading! i love you all very much, and i will see you in the next chapter! 🦋
> 
> find me ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	2. ouvert

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the second chapter, _ouvert_. ouvert is to open to the audience. 
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is satie's trois gymnopedies, lent et douloureux! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU) and [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/7kTVe6XhIveidvkt8nb7jK?si=ws2aBmnZRa-9BrFcsppRHA). 
> 
> as always, enjoy reading and i'll see you at the end! 🌷

The first week of classes at the academy come to an end much faster than Donghyuck had expected, and soon he finds himself spending his Friday evening with Renjun, Jaemin and Jeno in their dorm room. As it turns out, their room is just down the hall, which makes for convenient movie nights where they can find time. 

This evening is one of those nights, and Donghyuck sighs pleasantly from where he’s draped across the couch that Jeno and Jaemin somehow managed to squeeze into their room. The room is a little larger than his and Renjun’s, but still, it’s an impressive feat.

“How are you guys feeling about auditions on Monday?” Jeno asks from his position next to Donghyuck. There’s a rerun of _Moulin Rouge_ on the television screen, but Donghyuck has seen it more times than he can count so he doesn’t mind the others talking over it. 

“I’m not too worried. Jeno and I have managed to get a few practices in after class this week,” Jaemin calls from his bed, his voice relaxed although the sound is half muffled from his position underneath the blankets. 

“Yeah, and I did the sequence in an old production and still remember it, so it should be okay,” Jeno adds.

Donghyuck sighs in agreement, because it’s true. Often it’s the case that once you learn a dance, you can never forget it. Perhaps your mind can, but your body never does. 

Donghyuck had almost forgotten where Renjun is until he hears him call out, “Donghyuck and I are practising over the weekend. We managed to book a studio, but how there were any available I have no idea.”

Donghyuck turns his gaze away from the screen to Jaemin’s bed again, where this time he can just make out a smaller figure beside Jaemin’s body beneath the blankets, too. Donghyuck smiles to himself. Jeno sends him a knowing look and they both laugh, making sure to keep quiet so that the other two can’t hear them over the movie. 

The night fades away from that moment onward, a blur of dramatic scenes in the movie, many bad jokes on Jeno’s part, and lots of laughter on Donghyuck’s.

In less than a week it feels as if he’s found a home here. Not just in the physical sense, although he does find much beauty in the atmosphere of the academy. But home in a deeper sense, in the increasingly comfortable feeling he finds when he’s gliding across the floor, when he’s smiling and laughing with his friends, and even when he’s in his bed at night, drifting off to a dreamland where he’s dancing through the sky, a duet with the stars. 

  
  


───── 

  
  


The alarm goes off before the sun is very high in the sky, and Donghyuck finds himself met with a frustrated groan from Renjun’s bed. He rolls to his side, propping himself on one elbow and rubbing at his eyes with the other hand. 

Donghyuck opens his eyes slowly and he’s met with a pleasant view of the courtyard below, and beyond it the streets of the city, already alive with the hum of life; bicycle bells and chirping birds, hurrying bodies in each direction, no doubt off to work. 

The sun is still rising and so the space below is dipped in a soft gold too, covering all of the students who are already filling the space, dance bags in one hand and coffees in the other. Donghyuck chances a look beneath the magnolia tree just for a moment but finds no one sitting beneath it.

“Come on, Donghyuck. Get up,” Renjun’s rough voice comes from his side of the room and Donghyuck turns to him with a confused look, only to find that he’s still in bed and there’s a smile on his face.

“Says you, you’re still in bed too,” Donghyuck quips back, and despite the early hour they’re already falling into their usual friendly bickering routine. (Donghyuck hasn’t told Renjun yet, maybe he will one day, but he likes it because it reminds of his best friend back home). 

“Yeah, but I get ready faster than you,” Renjun says with a smug smile on his face, and that’s enough motivation to get Donghyuck out of bed, his feet making contact with the cold wooden floor and he shivers. 

“Are you sure?” he challenges, and that has Renjun throwing off the covers and joining him in the middle of the room. 

They spend the next few minutes just like that, seeing who can put on their clothes faster as if the competition means anything. It’s fun, though, and Donghyuck finds himself soon forgetting the tempting desire to crawl back into bed and sleep some more.

It’s not an official class and so Donghyuck opts for something more casual, pulling on grey sweatpants and a large oversized sweater. Renjun does something similar, and they both know that it’s about keeping their muscles as warm as possible to avoid injury. Such a thing would be a disaster considering auditions are only a few days away.

Soon they head out the door, weaving through the crowds of first years who bustle around the hallways and between the buildings. They reach the studios to find that each is filled with students practicing, all except for one – the one they had managed to book.

“This is us,” Renjun confirms, eyeing the piece of paper stuck to the door with their names on it. “I can’t believe we managed to get one. You’d think they’d be all booked out considering auditions are so soon.”

“Mm,” Donghyuck hums in agreement as they enter the space. It’s a studio neither he or Renjun have danced in before, as their classes tend to use the same three large studios, where this one is more suited to smaller practices.

They dump their stuff by the wall and Donghyuck walks toward the stereo in the corner, his phone in hand. Renjun takes position in the centre of the room, inhaling deeply and curling over himself in a deep stretch. 

Donghyuck plugs his phone in and the speakers make a strange crackling sound that scares him for a moment, but soon it’s gone and the song he selects is playing instead.

He sighs, as if releasing all tension that might be lingering in his body when he hears the first few notes of Satie’s _Trois Gymnopédies_ . The piece _lent et douloureux_ had been the first he ever danced to solo, when he was still only a child. 

As the somber piano notes wash over him, Donghyuck pliés, his muscles pulling and working to keep him bent as he closes his eyes and relives that moment.

Only ten, he had been. Almost a year after he had watched that little boy with dark hair dance as if walking on air. His grandmother had sat in the audience with his mother by her side, and from the stage, through the dark hall he could see their faces, if but a glimpse of two pairs of proud eyes. 

By the time Donghyuck comes back to the moment, he’s moved through all of his usual stretches and exercises and is warm enough to dance. The final notes are played and soon the song is fading out, and Donghyuck is left in silence with Renjun who has also just finished.

“Ready?” Renjun asks, a small smile playing on his lips as he watches Donghyuck shake out his limbs and stretch his neck.

Donghyuck nods, determined. “Ready.”

  
  


─────

  
  


It’s much later in the day when they finish, if only because their bodies give out and not for lack of wanting to continue. Renjun collapses in a heap on the floor, his chest heaving as a groan escapes his lips and Donghyuck tries to laugh, but it comes out as more of a breathy sound. 

They take a moment to recollect themselves before Renjun suggests they get something to eat. The sun is starting to set in the sky and despite their determination, they both know it’s best to stop here. (Dancers can be such perfectionists, but such is the disease of the artist. Donghyuck has to work hard to keep his own in check).

Walking over to his bag with sore legs, Donghyuck bends over to grab his water bottle. He stands again, turning so that his back is arched against the barre that leans against the wall. As he does, his eyes fall to the opposite wall, made half of glass. Donghyuck watches only half-consciously as students and teachers alike walk past. 

He isn’t really focusing, until there’s a glimpse of dark hair, just a flurry of movement, passing briefly by the studio and disappearing just as fast. So fast, in fact, that Donghyuck wonders if he had imagined it. 

He shakes his head, taking a deep breath, wondering why his heart is suddenly fluttering so erratically in his chest despite stopping practice minutes ago. 

  
  


─────

  
  


Just as the weekend did, Monday comes around at rather an alarming pace, and soon Donghyuck finds himself walking toward the studio building with Renjun, Jeno and Jaemin by his side. It’s a different feeling this morning – they’re all quiet as they walk, and Donghyuck supposes they must be just as lost in their own thoughts as he is.

There’s a fluttering that spreads from the top of his chest to the base of his stomach, butterflies that are alive with nerves. No matter how hard Donghyuck practises, no matter how many hours he spends in the studio or how much blood, sweat and tears he loses, he always finds himself feeling like this before a performance or audition.

It’s exactly how he felt only a few months ago, auditioning for the very academy he now finds himself in.

“Look, the second years are just about to start,” Jeno calls out, pointing at the first studio, the only in the entire complex which has completely glass walls. It’s used as the audition studio for a reason – so that every student can watch the auditionees – and Donghyuck can’t decide if that’s cruel or not. On the one hand, it inspires motivation for the younger students, but on the other, it shows you what you’re up against. 

Last night, he and the others had decided to arrive at auditions early to watch the second years perform. As they don’t take any classes together, none of them have had a chance to see their seniors perform. (Donghyuck would be lying if he said there wasn’t one second year in particular that he wants to see dance, though). 

The four boys find a spot in the foyer of the building that allows them clear sight into the audition studio, close enough to see easily but not too close that it’s obvious they’re watching. Jeno says this is to avoid adding unnecessary stress to the performance of the seniors, but Donghyuck thinks it has much more to do with Jeno concealing his obsession with the tall and gorgeous second year Wong Yukhei, or Lucas, as his friends call him. 

Donghyuck has noticed, though, because it’s rather obvious – as Lucas enters the studio in front of them, bowing before the panel of judges, Jeno’s eyes widen and there’s a blush on his cheeks. Donghyuck smiles to himself, but he can’t blame him. Lucas is as gorgeous as he is talented, there’s no denying that.

They watch Lucas perform – Jeno clapping enthusiastically alongside the other first years in the hall who are watching less covertly – and then the second years who perform after him too. Two dancers catch Donghyuck’s eye in particular, a Dejun and a Kunhang, who move with such fluidity and foundation that Donghyuck wonders for a moment if they might even rival Mark.

Mark.

Donghyuck’s heart races at the mere thought of the other boy, fluttering a little when he hears the coordinator in the hall call his name, signalling that it’s Mark’s time to audition. Donghyuck takes a deep breath. He’s about to see him dance again.

From a corner Mark Lee emerges, his face schooled into an unreadable expression and Donghyuck can’t see a single sign of nerves as he watches the boy pass. Today he’s in a plain black singlet and dance leggings, and he looks just as effortlessly beautiful as Donghyuck remembers thinking he was when he saw him last week, for the first time in years.

And then something happens that surprises Donghyuck. 

The judges meet Mark with friendly greetings, and even though Donghyuck can’t see their faces, he can tell they’re all smiling. Mark’s expressionless face breaks for a moment as he nods politely, a fond smile on his face. There’s a collective whispering in the hallway, and then it falls notably more silent than it has been all morning, as everyone awaits the start of the music.

Mark takes his position in the corner of the room, and it’s as if something is switched. Immediately, even just standing still, he assumes a position of such elegance and poise that leaves Donghyuck breathless. Before the boy has even started dancing, it’s as if Donghyuck is nine again, watching him through a small and pixelated screen.

Even though Donghyuck hadn’t recognised him when he saw Mark that day in the studio, he recognises him now. He can see it in the way he holds himself. It’s the same boy Donghyuck watched dance all those years ago. 

The song starts to play and Mark moves. 

Donghyuck doesn’t remember much after that. The three minute sequence feels like only a few seconds, like a moment that he’s trapped in, replaying in his mind in slow motion over and over. Watching the other boy dance is like he’s in a dream.

When Mark moves, he makes art with his body. Donghyuck realises now that no other dancer could compare. Dancing had always been an artform to Donghyuck, but Mark reminds him that dancers are themselves the artist. With his body he creates shapes and lines that belong in paintings, as if he is merely moving through the brushstrokes of a painter, creating a perfect vitruvian man. 

Mark reminds Donghyuck why he loves to dance. Of course he does, when he’s the reason Donghyuck started in the first place. 

  
  


─────

  
  


An hour or so later and with his heart beating ridiculously hard in his chest, Donghyuck takes his position at the corner of the room. The panel of old and hardened-looking judges, dressed mostly in black, stare back at him, and he has to school his breathing back to a normal rhythm. 

He can do this, he knows he can. It just feels different this time, and Donghyuck knows it’s because he suspects someone in particular to be watching.

Everything changes when the music begins, though. Just as it had been as he watched Mark dance, once he begins to move Donghyuck forgets all time and space and his mind goes still. Moving through the sequences, Donghyuck glides across the floor, his feet pressing against it in resistance only to lose contact as he leaps, jumps and turns through the piece of music.

All of the practice over the weekend pays off, because Donghyuck makes it to the end of the routine without a single hiccup. In fact, even if there were one, he doubts he would remember – his mind is completely blank and it’s as if the studio, the entire academy itself has faded away, and he’s just a boy dancing alone on a stage.

The final beat strikes and silence falls. Donghyuck holds his position, chest rising and falling as he keeps his chin tilted, eyes staring unfocused out the glass at the dozens of students watching from beyond the room. He’s sure his friends are somewhere amongst the crowd, too.

“Thank you, Donghyuck,” a voice sounds – one of the judges – and Donghyuck drops his gaze to meet it. Although those are the same words they give every auditionee, there’s something different about it. It lacks the same formality, and instead sounds more like a question as it leaves the woman’s lips.

Donghyuck scans their faces in confusion, finding an equally shocked expression on each and every one.

“Thank you,” Donghyuck says with a bow, the customary response, although even his own statement sounds like a question. The judges look so stunned, at what he isn’t sure, and he finds that his heart doesn’t settle even as he leaves the room.

As he walks through the door and into the open space where his friends wait, Donghyuck wonders. Had he made a mistake? He’s sure that he didn’t, although he was admittedly lost in the flow of the dance and may not have noticed.

Donghyuck is somewhere between bewilderment and panic when he reaches his friends, who – much to his dismay – wear identical expressions to the judges. (In fact, as Donghyuck looks around, so does every other student in the hallway). 

“Hyuck,” Jaemin starts, but trails off. Donghyuck looks between their faces, heart racing in his chest, worry creeping its way into his thoughts. Had he missed a step? A bea–

Renjun cuts him off. “Hyuck, you were incredible.”

Jeno nods almost immediately. “Amazing, seriously. I haven’t seen someone dance like that in a while,” his eyes are unwavering as they meet Donghyuck’s. 

“Really?” he asks, voice uncertain. Donghyuck knows that he’s talented, anyone in the academy must be, to be able to get into a place like this. But special enough to make the entire panel of judges stunned? He isn’t so sure. 

Donghyuck isn’t being critical or self-deprecating when he thinks that about himself. It’s realistic, really. Dancers like that are rare. So rare, really, that he can only think of one.

“Yes, really,” Renjun confirms. They stand for a moment in silence as Donghyuck’s mind tries to catch up, to process what has happened.

“God, I thought I must have messed up somewhere. The way the judges were looking at me...,” Donghyuck trails off with a sigh, feeling relief flood through his body. The others laugh at that, and Donghyuck finds himself laughing too – it feels good, like a release. 

When they settle, Donghyuck takes the opportunity to thank them. “Thank you, guys. What you said about my dancing,” he’s at a loss for words, but they all seem to understand, because they smile and pull him close in an awkwardly coordinated four-way hug. Donghyuck doesn’t mind, though. The sentiment is enough, and besides, they’re all laughing again anyway. 

He and Renjun wait back for Jeno and Jaemin’s auditions, which both go smoothly and they’re there to cheer them on afterward. Both are beautiful dancers, not to Donghyuck’s surprise, and he takes a moment as Jaemin finishes his routine to marvel in the moment – in the way that he has found himself surrounded by boys and girls with as much of a burning desire to create art with their bodies, and to connect through music. 

That’s a beautiful thing, and in this moment, Donghyuck feels grateful. A warm feeling blooms in his chest as he watches his friend leave the studio, a bright smile on his face and his hair as vibrantly blue as ever. 

For the umpteenth time in such a short amount of time, Donghyuck feels at home.

  
  


─────

Later that day Donghyuck finds himself in town, as his friends decided that they deserved a reward for completing their first audition within the academy without an injury or mistake. Donghyuck suspects it might be an excuse to take their minds off the impending results of said auditions, but he’s happy to tag along.

They pick a cafe on the corner of the main road – a large boulevard lined with plain trees which sway in the midday breeze – and a quieter side street of quaint apartment blocks. The table is outside, and Donghyuck manages to grab a seat that faces away from the sun, so that its warmth caresses his back.

They eat and talk comfortably for a while, simply enjoying each other’s company, before Jeno speaks up.

“Donghyuck,” he says, and said boy glances up from where he had been particularly focused on his sandwich. Their eyes meet and Jeno pauses before continuing. “You were incredible today.”

The others hum in agreement, and Donghyuck feels himself blush. 

“Look, he’s blushing!” Jaemin coos fondly, doting on him in a way that reminds Donghyuck oddly of his grandmother. He can’t help but smile. Jeno is smiling too, but Renjun’s face is serious when he meets his gaze.

“Jeno’s right, Donghyuck,” the boy says, voice serious. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you get the part of Prince Désiré.”

“Renjun, don’t say that,” Donghyuck urges. It’s not that he doesn’t want the part – it’s the part every male student including him auditioned for, holding at least a small amount of hope in their heart that they might get it – but he doesn’t want Renjun to jinx it. It also sounds a little too flattering to hear Renjun say aloud, and the overly humble side of himself doesn’t know how to deal with it. “Don’t jinx it,” he settles on saying, but that only earns a laugh from his friend.

The conversation wanders back to other matters, mostly Jaemin’s embarrassing stories from his studio back home, most of which involve Jeno in one way or another. Donghyuck watches as his friends smile and laugh, carefree, all of them dipped in gold by the afternoon sunlight, a little pink nosed from the cold breeze.

He looks away with a smile, his eyes landing on a head of dark hair amongst the crowd walking past on the street. He blinks and it’s gone, and this time Donghyuck is sure he had been imagining things. He refocuses on the conversation but a part of his mind remains elsewhere.

Elsewhere as in, still in the audition room from earlier that day. Still there, watching a certain boy dance his way through a piece, as if nothing else existed in the world other than him and his body.

─────

Donghyuck manages to dance his way through the next week of classes with relatively little thought spared to the audition results, except for a few brief moments where Renjun’s words manage to creep their way into his mind.

That’s how he finds himself waking up on the Monday of the following week, realising as he opens his eyes that today is the day results are released.

His heart flutters with the nervous energy that he’s tried to suppress all week, and he rolls over to find Renjun already awake.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he sympathises, having had a rather restless sleep himself. Renjun nods, dark circles tracing the shapes of half moons under his eyes.

“Not really,” Renjun sighs, pushing away the blankets and standing to get ready. Donghyuck joins him and they do so in silence, both too lost in their own thoughts to hold a proper conversation.

They head out the door together without ever discussing their destination, both knowing intuitively where they’re going. They trace the hallways and move down the stairs in a thoughtful silence, and Donghyuck notices that the hallways are rather uncharacteristically empty.

The reason for that becomes clear when they reach the common room that joins all the different wings and levels of the dorm building where first years live. It seems every resident is here now, all crowded around a single piece of paper tacked to the notice board.

Donghyuck can see it from where he and Renjun stand at the edge of the crowd, its white paper gleaming as if bearing some holy information. (As far as the interests of the academy students go, it might as well be just that).

He and Renjun join the queue that forms out of the nervous mass of energy that is the crowd of eager first years, although they struggle to find Jaemin and Jeno amongst them. Renjun checks his phone to find a message from the previous night, letting the two of them know that they had chosen to sleep in as the results won’t change over the course of the day so there’s no need to get up early. (He and Renjun laugh at that, fully convinced that it was Jaemin’s idea).

It isn’t long before the two boys find themselves at the front of the queue, finally faced with the ominous piece of paper that holds more power than a single piece of paper ever should.

Donghyuck scans the document quickly, noting that the second years he had been impressed by during auditions received significant roles. Most of the other roles have been given to people he hasn’t heard of, who he assumes must be third years.

Donghyuck smiles when he finds that Jeno, Jaemin and Renjun all received roles as members of the royal court, as courtiers and advisors. They aren’t main or leading roles, but certainly opportunities for the three to make an impression for themselves as first years.

He congratulates Renjun with a tight hug, basking in the way his friend smiles brightly, a stark contrast to the tired look that had hung on his face only half an hour ago.

The smile leaves Donghyuck’s face, though, and his heart sinks in his chest when he doesn’t find his name anywhere on the page.

“Donghyuck,” Renjun trails off when he realises the same thing, his hand coming to Donghyuck’s shoulder to comfort him. Donghyuck doesn’t feel sad, really, just in shock. He scans the document again, thinking perhaps he has just missed something, but another search yields nothing.

He’s just about to turn away and accept that this production won’t be his moment, when he realises something.

Mark Lee’s name is nowhere to be found either.

─────

Donghyuck keeps it out of his mind for the rest of the day, trying not to ponder on why he may not have received a role, and even more curiously, why Mark didn’t get one either. 

The plan is going well until their last class for the day arrives, a foundation class that has them pushing the bounds of their flexibility and technique with gruelling barre exercises.

The pain seizing up Donghyuck’s thighs is an effective distractor and works for long enough, at least until there’s a knock at the door. Along with the rest of the class and the teacher, Donghyuck turns to see who it is.

He’s not sure who he had expected, but it certainly hadn’t been the academy’s director.

The director is an enigma of a person, a tall and brooding man with a serious face. And yet something potentially friendly also lurks in the depths of his otherwise unreadable eyes.

Donghyuck has only seen him once before, the day he had come to visit the academy. He had been teaching a class with only one student.

“My apologies for interrupting,” the director says, his voice carrying with force throughout the large and echoey studio. The teacher pauses the music hurriedly, a professional smile gracing her face.

“It’s not a problem, director. What can I do for you?” she asks, and the entire class anticipates his response. It’s hardly normal for the director to drop in on classes unannounced. Even Donghyuck knows that.

“I’d like to speak to one of your students,” he announces, eyes scanning the room.

“Which one, sir?”

A beat of silence.

“Lee Donghyuck.”

Suddenly Donghyuck feels like he’s falling, as if the earth beneath him has disappeared, and he blinks at the director in confusion. Said man’s eyes are now unquestionably on him, determination in his gaze. 

Donghyuck must have heard correctly.

“Of course,” the teacher nods, turning to face Donghyuck. “Off you go, Donghyuck. You’re dismissed from class.”

Donghyuck moves in autopilot, walking to the side of the room to collect his things but not without searching out Renjun. The smaller boy sends him a concerned look that does little to reassure him as he leaves the room.

Soon Donghyuck is alone in the corridor, save for the powerful presence that is the director, who he trails closely behind. They weave through the building and soon are heading out the door and across the courtyard in silence, and all Donghyuck can help but do is think of the piece of paper hanging on the wall of the common room, covered in words that aren’t his name. 

Or Mark Lee’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed the second chapter 🦋 if you did, please leave a kudos or let me know in the comments! thank you so much for all the love on chapter one, i'm so glad you're enjoying this story so far! 
> 
> thank you for reading, and i will see you in the next chapter! i'm very excited to share it, because from the third chapter onwards is where the story begins to progress. 🌷
> 
> come talk to me in the meantime! ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	3. pas de deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovelies ! welcome to chapter three, _pas de deux_. pas de deux is a duet between two ballet dancers.
> 
> thank you to the lovely [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter! ti amo tanto, cara.
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is comptine d'un autre été, l'après-midi! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOUkIdOnEPM) and [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3YYKrn3iGOAel605Znt3ai?si=pSf9t22NTuKp9N1EaH8zeQ). 
> 
> happy reading! 🌷

Donghyuck follows the director until they reach a building he hasn’t been into before. As it turns out, it’s the home of the offices – both for the teachers and the director himself. They continue to walk in silence even once they’re inside, walking down winding hallway after hallway, and the anticipation is slowly starting to eat Donghyuck from the inside out.

He’s not sure if he should be anxious or excited. The nervous look on Renjun’s face from only moments ago lingers in his mind, coupled with the way the entire class had looked at him as the director called out his name. On the other hand, it’s not every day that the director requests to speak to a student personally. 

Questions gnaw at him mercilessly until they finally reach the office, a room that’s spacious but not too much so. There’s a large window behind a mahogany desk that allows soft sunlight to filter into the space, dipping the entire wooden room in gold in a way that instantly calms the erratically beating heart in Donghyuck’s chest. At least he knows that here, he will get some answers.

There are two seats positioned opposite the desk which the director moves to sit behind. He looks regal as he takes his position, watching as Donghyuck enters the room, tentatively closing the door behind him. Donghyuck’s eyes move back to the chairs, and that’s when he spots a familiar head of dark hair seated in one of them.

The owner of the hair glances over his shoulder, his eyes wandering upward until they meet Donghyuck’s. The connection lasts only a few moments but leaves Donghyuck reeling, both at the contact and the fact that there’s just as much confusion lingering in Mark’s eyes as Donghyuck can feel in his own. Mark mustn’t know what’s going on either.

“Donghyuck, please make yourself comfortable,” the director calls out in a voice that doesn’t match the stern look on his face. It’s warm and welcoming, and so Donghyuck takes a seat on the comfortable leather chair beside Mark.

There’s a moment of silence as the director looks between them.

“Now I’m sure you have many questions about why you’re here,” Donghyuck hears a soft laugh come from his side. He turns to find Mark smiling slightly, his eyes turning to crescent moons as he does. The sound and sight bring instant relief to Donghyuck as the director returns the smile with a fond look in his eye.

Perhaps this is good news, Donghyuck thinks.

Both boys fall into silence, awaiting further explanation like flowers await the spring. Knowing with certainty that it will come, but urgently nonetheless. Donghyuck’s heart is pounding in his chest, no longer out of confusion but out of anticipation. The moments seem to pass incredibly slowly before the director speaks again

“As I’m sure you’re aware, when the audition results were released earlier today, the two lead roles – Aurora and Prince Désiré – were not revealed.”

Donghyuck nods, but he doesn’t really understand where this is going. There’s a small thought in the back of his head that whispers several dangerous words, planting the seeds of an idea, a small flame that he doesn’t want to tend to for long in case he’s wrong.

“The reason for that, and the reason the two of you are here today, is because we have chosen to give you the roles.”

Breathe, Donghyuck has to remind himself.  _ Breathe. _

The director’s words wash over him in waves, crashing against the shore of his mind but never quite penetrating. He doesn’t understand.  _ How can they both play the male lead? How can they both be Prince Désiré? _

“This will be the academy’s first dual male lead production. Mark, you will be Prince Désiré. And Donghyuck,” a pause as the director’s eyes find his, “You will be Aurora.”

─────

It takes several more minutes of the director talking for the message to finally sink in. Not only has Donghyuck received a lead role as a first year in the production, but he will also be dancing with Mark Lee.

He hadn’t thought it possible, given that there can only be one Prince Désiré. The director explains to the two of them, much to Donghyuck’s embarrassment, that the panel of judges were impressed by Donghyuck’s audition and knew he must be included in the production in some way.

The director also explains that the two of them were chosen because he believes they have potential for fantastic onstage chemistry, as it was said in his words. Donghyuck finds himself blushing, receding slightly further back into his chair and hoping that Mark can’t see him from his position beside him.

Much to his relief, Mark doesn’t glance at him this time, focusing instead on the director’s words. He looks serious again. Professional, in the way he sits carefully on the edge of his seat. A true artist, Donghyuck thinks. Ready to perform.

“How do you feel about this, Mark?” the director’s voice pulls Donghyuck out of his thoughts. He doesn’t need to turn to Mark to gauge his reaction because he’s already looking.

“It would be an honour, director,” the other boy says with a delicate smile, in such a genuine tone that Donghyuck finds himself blinking, overwhelmed.  _ An honour _ , for Mark Lee to dance with him? If anything it’s the other way around. For Donghyuck to dance with the boy who inspired him to do so in the first place.  _ That  _ is an honour.

“And what about you, Donghyuck?” the director’s attention turns to him. “What do you think?”

“I’m grateful for this opportunity, director,” Donghyuck manages to say, still overwhelmed, but his eyes move from the director to Mark, who is watching him now, too. And in a rare moment of boldness, “It would be an honour to dance with Mark Lee.”

─────

Less than an hour later, Donghyuck finds himself back in the very studio he had been in when the director came to see him. Classes have finished for the day, and it shows, because the entire building is empty save for a few students here and there. Most have returned to their dorms or wandered into town for dinner, and that leaves Donghyuck, the director and Mark alone in the empty and large main studio.

Through the glass windows that decorate the walls, Donghyuck can see out into the city. He can see the bashful shades of lilac that dance in the otherwise deep blue sky, the sun having already disappeared beneath the horizon and the stars beginning to show their faces for the evening. Despite the time the city is alive, with traffic and pedestrians and commotion. 

Donghyuck is brought back to the moment when the director clears his throat. He turns his gaze toward the sound, finding the director standing not too far away, facing the two of them.

“I understand it would have been considerate to give you two time to prepare. However, this is a novel idea for the academy and so time is of utmost importance. We must determine as quickly as we can if this is going to work.” 

Donghyuck nods, and he sees Mark do the same in the mirror. He’s standing tall, the hallmark posture of a classical dancer, his gaze unwavering as it meets the directors. He’s still in professional mode, the state that amazes Donghyuck the most. The way the other boy can become an instrument of movement and grace in only moments. 

(And yet, Donghyuck wonders too about the other sides of Mark. The one he had seen as the boy conversed fondly with their teacher, or the one he had seen when Mark smiled at the director. Donghyuck finds himself wanting to know more.)

“As I explained back in my office, I would like you to freestyle. Anything from classical ballet to interpretive contemporary is acceptable, as long as it explores your chemistry,” the director pauses, and Donghyuck holds his breath. “I want to see the way you move together.”

The two boys nod again in silence, and with that, the director moves toward the stereo in the corner. Before Donghyuck knows it the older man is pressing play on his phone and delicate piano notes fill the studio. 

As Donghyuck always finds, it’s as if his body is attune to the rhythm of music. When it begins to play, all else goes silent, and it’s just him and the piano. (Except for this time, that is. This time, there’s someone else too.) 

The notes are soft, tentative almost, fading in and hesitating like something taking its first steps. Donghyuck takes a moment to feel the music and he can see Mark doing the same in the mirror. The director steps back to watch, and that’s when Donghyuck finally begins to move. 

He bends, curves and turns, staying on his side of the space as he feels his way through the notes, but it’s as if he can sense that Mark is there – close, but also impossibly far away – a distance that seems so small it could never be closed. 

But he and Mark must be in sync, like words dancing on the same page, because the music shifts, the notes climbing higher and with less hesitance, and they move toward each other, the space between them disappearing as fast as any inhibitions Donghyuck may have had.

His mind goes still, except for one word which replays on a loop like a broken record:  _ Mark. _

They move together like two koi fish, the perfect balance of harmony and resistance, like the push and pull of the tides. When Mark bends, Donghyuck relevés, only to fall as Mark rises. They circle each other and move apart, diverging from their path together to dance separately again.

The music picks up in tempo, a series of hurried and insistent notes that Donghyuck finds himself turning to, a series of fouettés before he pulls his leg in, arms wrapping in on himself as he relies on the sheer momentum of his turns to propel him.

His body is like a leaf in a storm, both caught in the wind and moving against it, and as the momentum runs out, Donghyuck begins to fall out of the turn. And yet, something is there to catch him.

Donghyuck can feel Mark’s breath on his neck, can feel his body pressed against his from behind, the only thing anchoring him to reality. It’s as if every point of contact between them is amplified, his skin burning under the touch of the other boy’s hands at his waist holding him still.

Donghyuck melts against him, head rolling back against Mark’s shoulder and eyes closing as the piano notes increase in urgency again, once more assuming the role of the leaf. If Donghyuck is the leaf, then, Mark is the eye of the storm.

They move together again in tandem, turning and chasing each other across the floor until they meet halfway in the middle. Mark’s hands come to Donghyuck’s hip bones again, and although the other boy says nothing, something is communicated between them loud and clear.

Donghyuck pliés as Mark’s hands tighten their grip at his waist, and soon he is being lifted into the air effortlessly as if they have done this together a thousand times before. Donghyuck arabesques, extending his leg behind him and Mark is there to catch it. It’s the kind of compatibility that Donghyuck has never experienced with another dancer – or perhaps, person – before.

And just as quickly as they had escalated, the notes are returning to their initial softness, the urgency of the chorus forgotten, and Mark lowers Donghyuck slowly to the ground. They melt away from each other slowly as the piano notes fade out, the last point of contact between their fingers disappearing too.

Donghyuck finds his ending pose, gaze away from Mark whose eyes remain on Donghyuck’s back as the music comes to a close. There’s a few moments of silence as they hold the position, Donghyuck’s chest rising and falling and Mark’s breathing filling the quiet. 

As they catch their breaths, Donghyuck realises something. He had expected dancing with Mark to feel like falling – a common sensation for him whenever he gets overwhelmed. And yet somehow it had been quite the opposite. It had felt as if he were flying.

Something changes as the director claps, the sound echoing off the four walls of the studio. It’s a slow clap, pensive, and Donghyuck releases his body from the strict position to turn toward it. He’s still panting as he does, his hands coming to rest at his waist, and suddenly Donghyuck is blushing at his own touch because it reminds him of the dance they shared only moments ago.

“Mark, Donghyuck, consider yourselves Désiré and Aurora,” there’s a huge grin on the director’s face, the biggest and most infectious smile that Donghyuck has ever seen on the man, and he finds himself smiling too. A warm feeling – fluttery and new like a dragonfly – spreads through his chest as he finally allows himself to feel proud, to feel excited.

The idea that Donghyuck will be performing as Aurora has felt like a dream ever since the director told them, and yet now it finally feels as if it is coming true. As if Donghyuck has woken up, only to find that it was never just a dream.

“Your chemistry is strong. I sense something great here,” the director continues, and Donghyuck hopes that Mark can excuse his blush as exertion from the dance and nothing more. He doesn’t mind as much if he notices, though, because the feeling of elation surging through him surpasses any worry he may have had.

“I agree,” Mark adds, the first thing he’s said since they left the office. His voice resonates clearly in Donghyuck’s ears, who turns toward the sound instinctively. Mark is already looking at him, he finds, and Donghyuck meets his gaze. “I can feel it too.” 

And even though he’s talking to the director, Mark says the words without ever looking away from Donghyuck.

─────

The director leaves not long after, no doubt to attend to other matters he must have to take care of as the leader of a world renowned academy, Donghyuck supposes, and it leaves him alone in the studio with Mark.

He swallows, butterflies fluttering nervously in his stomach as they’re left in silence. Donghyuck looks up, into the mirror and at himself, and for a moment he sees himself as if he were simply a stranger. What he finds is the image of a boy, curly hair messy on his head and something akin to joy glinting in his eye.

Donghyuck smiles to himself, shifting his gaze to the other boy in the room. Their eyes meet in the mirror and Donghyuck’s heart flips in his chest.

“Donghyuck,” the other boy calls, and he decides that he likes the way his name sounds coming from Mark’s lips. Donghyuck turns again to meet his gaze outside of the mirror, finding an unreadable expression on his face, and neither makes any motion to move.

He realises in that moment that this is the first time he’s been alone with Mark. It’s a surprising realisation, as Donghyuck feels rather like he’s known him his entire life. The way they danced only moments ago seems to confirm that feeling, and yet Donghyuck knows that it isn’t true.

Donghyuck says nothing, merely watching the other boy, searching his eyes and waiting for him to speak again. Mark doesn’t, though. Instead, he finally moves, stepping closer towards Donghyuck until he’s only a few inches away and Donghyuck has to lift his head to meet the other boy’s eyes.

From this close up, Donghyuck can see the hints of light brown in Mark’s otherwise dark eyes. They remind him of splatters of paint on a canvas. He can also see the delicate shadows of his long eyelashes that dance across his cheeks, and even the gentle curve of his small nose.

Donghyuck blinks. He’s staring.

With a quick clear of the throat, Donghyuck prays to every deity he can think of that Mark either didn’t notice or doesn’t mind. It seems to be the latter, though, judging by the way Mark’s face slowly contorts into a smile, not mocking or amused, simply content. As he does, there’s something sparkling in his eyes too, and they remind Donghyuck now more than ever of the stars in the night’s sky.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Mark Lee,” Mark says with a grin, and all tension leaves Donghyuck’s body as he bursts into surprise laughter, covering his face with his hand as Mark joins him.

“Yes, I know,” Donghyuck responds through a laugh, trying to catch his breath. Mark isn’t laughing anymore, simply smiling at him with a slightly tilted head as Donghyuck tries to put himself together again. “I’m Lee Donghyuck,” he manages to get out after a few moments, and the smile on Mark’s lips only grows.

“May I?” he asks after a moment, gesturing toward Donghyuck’s hand. Said boy nods, heart fluttering in his chest at the contact as Mark takes his hand delicately in his, lifting it gracefully to his lips to leave the ghost of a kiss against his knuckles.

Donghyuck watches in fascination as the golden of his skin meets the pretty pink shade of Mark’s lips.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Donghyuck,” he whispers, his lips moving against the skin. “Enchanté.”

“Likewise,” Donghyuck responds with a shy smiley. It’s a funny feeling, a rather odd mix of emotions – as flustered as he feels by the contact, he also wants it to never end.

“So, Aurora,” Mark starts, a smile on his lips that somehow manages to never cross into sarcastic territory, forever remaining genuine and kind. Donghyuck flushes an impossibly more dark shade of rouge at the name, his heart somersaulting in his chest. “Are you finished for the day?”

Donghyuck nods. “Yep, I was just going to head back to the dorms, maybe shower and get some rest.”

“Me too,” Mark says as they move toward the edge of the studio where their dance bags are slumped, long forgotten. Donghyuck pulls the strap over his shoulder, adjusting to the familiar weight, and watches as Mark does the same.

He’s so elegant even like this; the way he bends, his spine arching, the curves of muscles along his arm flexing to lift the bag where they’re exposed by his singlet. Donghyuck averts his gaze.

“Are you in the second year building?” he asks instead, equally out of curiosity and a desire to distract himself, eager to not be caught staring  _ again.  _ (He thanks the gods again that Mark doesn’t notice this time.)

“Yeah, it’s a few buildings over from the first years,” Mark adds as he pulls open the door, holding it for Donghyuck to slip through. They enter the hallway and walk side by side toward the exit of the building, the last few dancers who had remained earlier having now all disappeared.

Despite being dark and quiet, it’s not eerie in the way Donghyuck might have expected. Instead, it’s peaceful. And he couldn’t possibly feel scared, because he’s not alone.

“I don’t think I’ve seen it before. I haven’t really had a chance to explore the academy much,” Donghyuck ponders, realising how much of the academy he has yet to see in the few weeks since arriving.

“I was the same when I first started,” Mark hums, sending Donghyuck a reassuring smile. Donghyuck returns it. “It took a little while for me to find the time to explore, but once I did, I was so glad I took the opportunity. The academy is really beautiful.”

Donghyuck pushes the door open and they step out into the courtyard, the now all too familiar magnolia tree just visible in the dim yellow light of the street lamps.

“It really is.”

The journey from the studios to the dorms reveals one thing rather quickly: not only do they have chemistry as dancers, but also in conversation. Not once does it lull, and when it does go silent, it’s impossibly comfortable, as if they’ve known each other for much longer than they have. 

They come to a stop outside of the first year dorms, and that’s when Donghyuck realises that Mark has walked him there without even mentioning it. It’s difficult to see as the sky has now dipped into darkness, but what little light remains somehow manages to reflect solely in Mark’s eyes, as if they were made to hold light.

“This is me,” Donghyuck says through a soft laugh, unsure of what else to say, after realising he and Mark have been staring at each other silently for a while. “Thank you for walking me home, Mark.”

“It was my pleasure,” Mark smiles, his eyes lighting up, and Donghyuck feels butterflies in his stomach at the sight. (The sight of Mark placing a kiss to Donghyuck’s hand unhelpfully revisits, and he thanks the low light for concealing his flush.)

“It was lovely to officially meet you, Désiré,” Donghyuck quips with a sly smile, revelling in the way it makes Mark smile wider. And then, on a more shy note, “And to dance with you, too.”

“No,” Mark stops him with the resolute sound, a shift in tone so sudden that it takes Donghyuck by surprise. “The pleasure was all mine.”

There’s a pause, and the words wash over him, threatening to overwhelm him. There’s something in the way Mark’s lips are slightly parted that tells him Mark wants to say more, and so he watches and waits, hanging off every beat of silence before the boy speaks again.

“You have a gift, Donghyuck.”

With that, Mark is smiling again, his eyes sparkling and curved into half moons as he whispers goodbye and turns in the other direction, crossing the courtyard and disappearing behind a building which Donghyuck can only assume leads to the second year dorms.

Donghyuck stands there for a while even after Mark is gone, breathing and trying to process what he’s just heard.

Mark Lee, the very person that inspired him to start dancing, thinks that he has a gift. That thought alone leaves him breathless, dizzy, his head spinning, and so he waits there beneath the archway of the building, watching the magnolia tree sway in the breeze, trying to ground himself again.

Once he’s ready, Donghyuck turns around, ascending the stairs to his level in complete silence, not making a single sound until he’s unlocking the door to his room and is faced with a half-concerned, half-amused Renjun. 

At first he doesn’t understand the latter emotion, before he remembers that the window at the centre of their room has a perfect view of the courtyard below.

“Hyuck, what happened?” he asks.

And even after a few moments of thinking, all Donghyuck can seem to say is, “I have no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! thank you also for leaving your guesses about what might happen with mark and donghyuck on the previous chapter, they were lovely to read! 
> 
> the song i envisioned them dancing to is actually comptine d'un autre été, the one that goes with this chapter. i think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music, and a dance to it would be even more so.
> 
> if you liked this chapter, let me know what you thought!! reading your comments always makes me so happy.
> 
> i will see you soon in the next chapter! lots of love, ophelia 🌸


	4. en avant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the fourth chapter, _en avant_. en avant means travelling forwards. 
> 
> thank you as always to lovely [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter!
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is ravel's assez vif très rythmé! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2KUTa6P6lM) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/3wyRI3xz6s5pJW7AOx1MqM?si=6qC-AQ7GRKygyIDv0bvXBg).
> 
> i hope you enjoy this chapter and i'll see you at the end! 🌷

Joy. There’s no word for the emotion Donghyuck is feeling now other than that. 

The sun is shining brightly with the spirit of the weekend, wispy clouds flirt with blue sky and he watches from his position on the picnic blanket in delight as Renjun and Jaemin reenact the Swan Lake _pas de deux._ Jeno is splayed beside him, a raspberry in his mouth and laughing too, half out of embarrassment because there’s no doubt that everyone else in the park is watching as well.

Neither Renjun or Jaemin seem to care, though, for they continue to twirl in each other’s arms, attempting to sing the sounds of the piano as they dance.

“Look, Donghyuck, this is you!” Jaemin shouts, gesturing toward Renjun as he spins in his arms. Donghyuck rolls his eyes, biting back a smile when Renjun gestures at Jaemin and adds, “And look, Donghyuck, this is Mark!”

“Guys, please,” Donghyuck begs, but the smile on his face betrays him. They must decide to show him mercy though, because they eventually stop dancing and make their way to the picnic blanket which is just big enough for all four of them.

There’s a small round of applause from the nearby picnic-goers and Donghyuck blushes, thankful that his friends have finally stopped trying to embarrass him.

“Fill us in, Donghyuck,” Jeno urges once they’ve settled, his lips stained slightly red. Renjun and Jeno quieten then too, all their attention suddenly focused on Donghyuck.

“Well, you got the _pas de deux_ part right,” Donghyuck starts with a smile, and Jaemin looks very pleased at that. Then, Donghyuck finds himself being completely honest, intoxicated by the memory, when he says, “But it didn’t go quite like that. The connection we had was instantaneous. It was... **magical**.”

The word slips from his lips before he can stop it, and he waits in silence for the teasing that will no doubt come. But, to his surprise, it never does.

Donghyuck glances at all of their faces, but what he finds instead are identical looks of understanding. Small smiles and warm eyes, almost sympathetic, as if they know exactly what he means. 

“That’s wonderful, Donghyuck,” Renjun says, his voice genuine as he pats Donghyuck’s knee. “I don’t think every dancer gets to find that connection with another.”

Jeno and Jaemin hum in agreement and Donghyuck looks down at the grass, a smile making its way to his lips. For a moment he’s back there, in the studio with only the director and Mark’s breath on his skin. Even through the memory it’s as if he can feel it still. As if Mark were here in the park with him now, too. As if when Mark touched him days ago, the sensation left a tattoo of itself in his skin, etched there forever.

“How is the whole production going to work?” Jaemin asks, after he takes a bite of a plum that reminds Donghyuck of the ones his grandmother grew in her garden. He can still taste them on his tongue.

“The director has asked me to meet with him later today, actually,” Donghyuck explains, remembering the brief encounter he had with the enigmatic man after one of his classes earlier in the week. “All I know so far is that I will be Aurora and Mark Prince Désiré, but I think the director wants to talk over the specifics of it all.”

The conversation shifts after that, once his friends have successfully drawn out everything he knows about the production for now. They talk of arbitrary things then, sharing memories from their hometowns and funny stories from classes. 

Although Donghyuck feels at peace, basking in the golden sunlight of morning that soaks him in a kind of hazy warmth, his mind continues to linger on a particular boy and the way it felt when they moved against each other like two dying stars, being reborn in the sky into something new. Something new and inextricably intertwined.

─────

“Thank you for coming, Donghyuck,” the director says as he opens the door for said boy and beckons him inside. Donghyuck is sure he’ll never get used to the sight of such a bright smile on such a seemingly brooding man.

The office has a slightly different atmosphere than it did before – and Donghyuck is sure it’s just because this time there’s no suspense around why he’s here – but he suspects the record in the corner playing old french jazz might also have something to do with it.

Donghyuck settles in the same chair he sat in last time, sensing the absence of someone in the chair beside him, but he brushes it aside when the director clears his throat.

“I called you here today to discuss the logistics of your role as Aurora. There’s little to discuss with Mark, as we don’t need to change anything for him to play Désiré. However, as you’re playing a role typically played by a female ballet dancer,” he pauses and they both share a small laugh, mostly at the word _typically_ . It’s more like _always._ “We have two choices.”

Donghyuck focuses then, shifting slightly forward in his chair. “We can either adapt Aurora’s parts to not involve the pointe work typically done by the ballerina,” the director pauses, and Donghyuck listens to every beat of silence as the director watches him carefully, anticipating his next words. “Or, you could learn to dance on pointe.”

The words wash over Donghyuck for a few moments as he contemplates them, the director’s watchful gaze never leaving him. Then, after only a short time has passed, Donghyuck smiles.

“Actually director, I am already able to dance en pointe,” he says the words clearly as a swelling of pride rushes through him. He meets the director’s gaze head on, watching as his eyes widen in surprise.

“You can?” comes the almost disbelieving reply, although there’s a slight inflection of awe there, too. Donghyuck nods.

“At my studio back home, the teacher thought it was important for everyone to learn pointe. Not just the girls, but the boys too. We were a small studio and she wanted to help us distinguish ourselves from the rest,” Donghyuck recalls fondly, the old worn face of his teacher coming to mind. The director hums in thought, a hand coming to stroke at his chin.

“Well, she certainly achieved that much,” the director says with a laugh, and Donghyuck smiles again. “Donghyuck, this is fantastic. Not only will this mean that we can stay true to the essence of Aurora’s role, but it will allow you to make a name for yourself in the academy, even more than you already have.”

Donghyuck sits in silence for a moment, blinking, the director’s words taking him by surprise. There’s a fond look glinting in his eye. Donghyuck can see it now, can see the way he looks at him the same way he looks at Mark.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, feeling a slight heat come to his cheeks and the nape of his neck. The director smiles kindly.

“I always give credit where credit is due, Donghyuck.”

A scratching sound comes from the record as it skips to the next song, a more mellow, smooth tune, and with it comes the releasing of a breath Donghyuck didn’t realise he was holding in.

“Well, in that case, we can start rehearsals on Monday,” he smiles, pleased. “I look forward to working with you, Donghyuck.”

The director stands then, and Donghyuck does too, thanking him for his time and moving backing towards the door of the office. Even after the director says goodbye and Donghyuck is walking down the now almost familiar hallways of the teachers’ building, the director’s words resonate inside his head.

So too does the thought of dancing en pointe again. It’s been a while, and there’s a yearning in his bones, even in his feet as he walks, as if the ghost of dances once danced still linger there.

A new, warm feeling blooms in Donghyuck’s chest as he steps out of the building and into the midday sun, basking in the sounds as students sit in clusters or walk the campus, smiling and laughing in a carefree way that can often be seen on weekends.

He inhales the scent of magnolia as he crosses the courtyard towards the dorms. Before he enters he throws a quick curious glance at the tree, and for a moment he swears he can see the yellowed pages of an old book, pale slender fingers holding them splayed open. It must be a trick of the light though, or his mind, because when he blinks it’s gone.

Donghyuck shakes his head, unable to shake off the smile or the fluttering feeling in his chest as he ascends the stairs, excited to tell Renjun (and Jeno and Jaemin too if they happen to be in their room, which is likely) all about it.

─────

“Welcome everyone, come in,” the director’s voice beckons the cast of dancers into the studio, and Donghyuck walks into the large space behind his friends who chatter excitedly amongst themselves about their roles. It’s early on a Monday morning and the sun has only just begun to shine. There’s a chill in the air too, but Donghyuck feels nothing but warm.

He’s sure that there’s a smile on his face because he hasn’t been able to take it off since his meeting with the director a few days ago. Said man smiles at him now as Donghyuck drops his stuff off in the corner of the room, pulling off his sweater so that he stands in nothing but the standard white leotard and leggings.

The dancers fill the space, a hoard of boys and girls, tight ballet buns and shoes, and there’s an excited energy in the air that’s infectious. Donghyuck is just stretching out his arms and legs by the barre when a boy walks in, his dark hair windswept and his nose dusted a delicate pink from the morning chill. Donghyuck’s heart flutters in his chest.

(He hasn’t seen Mark since the boy walked him home after their first dance together, and it shows, because Donghyuck’s suddenly aware of his entire body, aware of the space between him and the other boy, feeling the ghost of his touch still caress his skin.)

The director greets Mark with a nod, who once more is not wearing the academy’s leotard but his own black one. Donghyuck smiles, thinking that he’ll have to ask the other boy why he does that one day, if he gets the opportunity.

The director puts on the standard classical piece they always warm up to, and Donghyuck takes a spot near his friends toward the back to stretch. Once they’re all warm — the cooler temperature long forgotten as their bodies come alive with energy — the director turns to them.

“Donghyuck,” his eyes find Donghyuck’s through the crowd. “Please come to the front,” he beckons with a gesture of the hand. Donghyuck sends his friends a quick glance, to which they smile reassuringly, before he weaves through the dancers who part for him like the sea. He reaches the front, stopping just before the director and beside Mark.

They’re only a metre or so apart, and it’s as if Donghyuck can sense that distance on his skin. As if that simple _pas de deux_ brought them together in ways that can never be broken.

“Welcome, everyone, to our first rehearsal for the academy’s production of _Sleeping Beauty_ ,” there’s a small round of applause, a studio of excited smiles, before the director continues. “Congratulations on receiving roles, you should all be proud of yourself for your achievements. It won’t be easy, and we have many hours of work ahead of us.”

The room becomes significantly more quiet then, a somber tone resonating as the difficulty of their endeavours dawns on them. They all know, though, in their hearts that it will be worth it. It’s why they’re all here, at the academy, in the first place.

“As I’m sure you’ve all heard, our second year exemplar student Mark Lee will be playing Prince Désiré, and first year Lee Donghyuck will be playing Aurora. However, I doubt any of you know,” he pauses, and Donghyuck wants to laugh, because he’s clearly exploiting the suspense of the moment. “Donghyuck will be dancing en pointe.”

There’s an audible gasp from someone, followed by a collective silence so quiet that Donghyuck is sure if he dropped a pin he would be able to hear it fall. It doesn’t matter though, not when he can feel Mark turning beside him, his gaze burning into Donghyuck’s skin. He doesn’t have to look to imagine the expression there, but he turns anyway just to confirm it.

Mark’s eyes are slightly wide in surprise, but it doesn’t last long before melting into an expression of awe. Donghyuck gazes back, feeling as if he’s frozen, his heart somersaulting in his chest.

“Now, if everyone is ready to begin, shall we?” the director asks after the shock has worn off, his role as the organiser of the production taking priority over his obvious flair for the dramatics. There’s a collective and enthusiastic _yes_ from the dancers; a hoard of first through to third years only some of whom Donghyuck recognises.

He turns, heading toward his bag to retrieve the new pair of pointe shoes he purchased on Sunday with Renjun in town. His old ones were too small and too worn, and Donghyuck is already dreading the upkeep that no doubt awaits. 

He remembers the days of training where he would go through three pairs a week. Thankfully, the academy covers the expenses of uniforms and shoes, otherwise Donghyuck is certain that he’d be broke by the end of the production.

─────

To Donghyuck, their first day of rehearsals is more like a montage. A flowing of events that feels more like a movie than reality. That’s most likely because they dance the entire day, from dawn till dusk, each scene from the ballet bleeding into the other.

It’s also, Donghyuck suspects, because he seems to measure the day in moments shared with Mark. By the nature of the story, he and Mark are apart for most of the ballet, but that doesn’t mean he feels Mark’s presence any less.

It’s notable during the second scene of the first act, the _rose adage_ , the most infamous part of the ballet and one of the most difficult. Donghyuck thought he would be more nervous about it, considering its difficulty, but when he dances he always manages to surprise himself; it’s as if something overtakes him, and sometimes he muses that it’s the spirit of dance, some kind of energy that merges with his body and mind to become one.

Donghyuck has always found that spiritual connection with dance, ever since he was first inspired to dance and stepped into a studio for the first time. It’s with him now, like a small bird that lives inside his heart, constantly in spring, always chirping and dancing with the flowers.

And it’s with him still as they reach the crucial scene. They mark out the steps, the arabesques and turns he has to perform with the four princes, three of whom are being played by dancers Donghyuck recognises from auditions as Lucas, Dejun and Kunhang.

Except even as they go through the motions, each getting a feel for the scene, Donghyuck’s mind is elsewhere. It’s elsewhere, because from the corner of the room, he can feel Mark watching him. 

It’s the same as that first day in the academy, when Mark had come to help monitor the first years. He had watched Donghyuck then as he does now, with such an intensity and lack of shame that it leaves him breathless.

Donghyuck can feel Mark’s eyes on him with every step he takes, every relevé and pas de bourrée, and he can feel the way they follow him around the room for the entirety of every scene he’s in. 

It becomes particularly apparent when Donghyuck is in the arms of the four princes, their hands at his waist helping him to turn, and he realises that he barely notices the touch, that all he can think about is but one thing – Mark.

And it all makes sense, Donghyuck realises, when it’s his turn to be side stage and he watches Mark dance through the first scene of the second act, a scene where the prince is travelling through the forest with his companions but occupied by thoughts of fairy tales. Mark plays it beautifully, Donghyuck thinks; the melancholy soul, the boy who yearns for more than his own worldly existence. 

A boy who dreams of fairy tales. Of love.

And then it’s Donghyuck’s turn to enter, as a young second year playing the Lilac Fairy gestures toward him, beckoning him on stage. Donghyuck enters, a new excitement burning through him like wildfire, as he prepares for the first _pas de deux_ in the ballet, and his second ever with Mark.

It’s just as intimate as the first time, so intense that it sets him ablaze all over again. It’s nothing like the _rose adage_ , because his body feels attune to the other boy’s touch, completely in sync as they move around each other, caught in a hesitant game of intrigue and curiosity. Mark plays this so well, too, and Donghyuck feels in that moment as if he were truly Aurora, because the expression on the other boy’s face is just so real.

The director praises them over the music, an excited lilt dancing in his voice and Donghyuck finds himself smiling even though it’s not part of the dance. It’s still on his face when Désiré finally joins him for the _pas de deux_ , bending on one knee as Donghyuck places a hand on his shoulder in a low arabesque.

He can hear Mark’s breathing, can feel the gentle thump of his heartbeat in his throat that matches the rhythm of Donghyuck’s own, and suddenly it’s as if it’s all that he can hear. And then Mark is standing, taking Donghyuck’s hand in his and they’re turning, half of Donghyuck’s weight on his foot and the other where he leans on Mark’s shoulder, who holds him just as firmly in an expression of trust, as if they’ve known each other for years. 

(In some ways, they have, Donghyuck’s heart reminds him.)

The rest of the dance is a blur, once more fading into a movie-like sequence of gentle touches and stolen glances, of Mark’s breath on Donghyuck’s skin, of lifts and turns which culminate toward the final ending; Donghyuck walking off stage and Mark pausing behind, a hand outstretched toward him as Désiré resolves to find the princess.

(Donghyuck will later realise this is an exact replication of how their first dance together ended, as if it were always meant to be.)

─────

The rest of the day slips away, lost to hours of practice that has Donghyuck’s body aching as he stands beneath the warm shower water, washing away the sweat and hopefully with it, the pain.

Even under the stream of water there’s a smile on his face, and it has Donghyuck occasionally spluttering as water enters his mouth and threatens to choke him. He laughs at himself because it feels ridiculous, but he really can’t suppress the feeling of elation that rushes through him as he relives the day; how proud of himself he is, and all the moments he shared with the other boy.

And he relives, too, the way that it ended:

The director had called the end of practice close to six, after a collective round of stomach growling and subtle complaining from most of the dancers. It had been a huge day, there was no denying that, so the director let them off with the promise of more hard work tomorrow.

As Donghyuck had ventured to the corner of the room, rehydrating and pulling off his pointe shoes to find already bruising feet, someone called his name.

“Donghyuck,” it’s Mark’s voice, Donghyuck could never miss that much. He turns on the spot to meet the boy’s gaze, butterflies fluttering nervously in his stomach when their eyes meet and he finds a rather endearing sight: Mark Lee with ruffled messy hair and a pink flush to his face. 

“Do you have a moment?” the boy asks, and Donghyuck nods without a doubt, abandoning any fear he may have had of coming across too keen. He follows Mark toward the centre of the room, his heart starting to beat harder in his chest. They reach a spot of considerable more privacy than what they had in the corner of the room with all the other dancers, and Donghyuck feels affected, being alone with Mark once again.

“What’s up?” Donghyuck prompts after Mark turns to face him and says nothing, simply looking at Donghyuck with the ghost of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Donghyuck finds himself returning it, even though there’s nothing in particular to smile about.

“In order to develop our chemistry as dancers,” Mark starts, and that fatal word has Donghyuck blushing for reasons beyond the exertion of dancing. “I think it would be a good idea to spend more time together, just the two of us. Get to know each other, and perhaps, build our trust.”

Donghyuck agrees wholeheartedly, and not just because he’s completely enamoured with the other boy. It’s because Mark is right. As partners they need to have nothing but trust, to build on the connection that they’ve already found until it’s unbreakable.

But it’s something about the fact that it isn’t the director suggesting it that makes Donghyuck flustered. That it’s Mark, essentially asking to spend more time with him. That makes his head spin, even though he knows that Mark is just being professional.

Donghyuck nods. “I think so, too.”

A smile, beautiful and bright and warm, grows on Mark’s face and he exhales. Donghyuck wonders then if he had been afraid to ask.

“What do you want to do?” Donghyuck asks, really to distract himself from that previous thought, and also because he’s curious. “Were you thinking of practicing privately?”

Mark’s eyebrows furrow slightly as he hums in thought. “Yes, I was thinking that would be a good idea, but perhaps later on in rehearsals,” he says, and Donghyuck blinks, confused. There’s a beat of silence before Mark speaks again. “I was actually thinking we could spend time together outside of the academy.”

The proposition dances between them in the silence, taking its time to wrap itself around Donghyuck’s mind, and once it does, the bird inside his heart is taking flight, fluttering with both nerves and excitement.

“That sounds lovely," Donghyuck smiles, and the expression on Mark’s face softens too. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, it’s meant to be nice weather tomorrow. Since it’s spring now and things are warming up, I was thinking that after rehearsals we could go down to the beach. I haven’t been there in longer than I’d like to admit and I miss the ocean.”

The honesty, a rather personal detail, makes Donghyuck’s head spin for a moment. So too then does the thought of visiting the beach with Mark, the place that no matter where he is in the world never fails to remind him of home.

“I’d love to,” Donghyuck says confidently with a nod. Mark smiles, looking relieved. 

They exchange numbers then, and Donghyuck notices as he turns away from the other boy to reunite with his friends that Mark saved himself as _Mark ♡_ in his phone. That makes Donghyuck laugh, something that immediately sparks interest in his friends.

“What was all that about?” Jaemin asks, a rather evil grin on his lips. Donghyuck shushes them and promises to explain later, too overwhelmed at that moment to ponder any longer.

At that moment they had decided to leave the studio and head home for a hard earned meal and shower, but before exiting the room, Donghyuck had sent a quick glance over his shoulder to find Mark already looking at him. 

The other boy had smiled then, and Donghyuck sent him a small wave before stepping through the door, leaving with nothing but the thought of how to make tomorrow arrive faster in his mind.

─────

The second day of rehearsals goes rather like the first, a series of running through different scenes and going over more difficult parts. Today, though, they linger more on the opening scene which Donghyuck is not in, and so he has an opportunity to rest.

Although, Mark isn’t in that scene either, and so Donghyuck finds himself often meeting his gaze across the room, sending a small smile and thinking of what may be to come later that evening.

It comes around rather quickly, both to Donghyuck’s pleasure and alarm, because the bird in his heart hasn’t settled once since Mark approached him yesterday. Nothing seems to overcome the desire to be around the other boy, as if Donghyuck were a bee in springtime and Mark a flower; as if he’s intoxicated merely in the other boy’s presence, drawn to him the same way a moth is to the light.

And so sooner than Donghyuck expects he’s rushing back to his dorm for a quick shower, changing into his favourite jeans and a shirt, threading the small necklace his mother gave him before he left for the academy around his neck. 

He doesn’t have the opportunity to wear it often as jewellery is not permitted in the academy, and so he delights in the feeling of its cold but familiar metal against his chest.

He tucks it beneath the fabric, keeping it safe, putting a few belongings in a shoulder bag and heading out the door (but not before Renjun bids him a fun evening).

─────

Donghyuck meets Mark in the courtyard, and he almost wants to laugh when he lays his eyes on the other for the first time. Not out of amusement but out of surprise, because beneath the magnolia tree sits Mark, head buried in a book in his hands.

It’s exactly like Donghyuck’s first day at the academy, and exactly like the image that has haunted his imagination over the past few weeks. Seeing for once that Mark is actually beneath the tree, and that Donghyuck isn’t simply dreaming it, makes him smile.

The courtyard is bathed in gold as despite the time, the sun is high in the sky, a promise of a warm summer to come. The tree sways in the slight breeze, a singular magnolia flower falling from its branch and riding the current down toward the ground. It lands just before Donghyuck’s feet as he stops before the other boy, taking in the sight.

His dark hair is just freshly washed, and he looks infinitely less sculpted, the way he does when he dances. Instead with his hair fluffy like a cloud and his eyebrows furrowed as he scans over the words on the page, he looks much more like just a boy.

Donghyuck has also never seen him in anything other than dance wear, he realises. Tucked into the top of washed blue jeans is a button up shirt with the top few buttons undone, revealing pale bare skin beneath that makes Donghyuck blush.

“Hi,” he says, both because Mark hasn’t noticed him and because he doesn’t know what will happen if he focuses for a moment longer on Mark’s exposed chest. Mark snaps to attention then, glancing up in realisation as he hears Donghyuck’s voice.

“Oh, Donghyuck,” he says as a smile blooms on his face. His fingers close the book and puts it away in the canvas bag by his side, which he straps over his shoulder as he stands. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Donghyuck smiles, feeling surprisingly comfortable, “a little tired, but good. How are you?”

Mark smiles, starting to walk toward the gates of the academy then and Donghyuck matches his pace. “A little tired too, but good as well. I can’t wait to see the beach again.”

Donghyuck hums, a smile on his lips as they step out onto the street, and it all feels so surprisingly normal. As if they could just be two local boys walking into town, not two professional ballet dancers in training with a performance looming on the horizon. “Me too,” he says. “It’s been too long.”

“When was the last time you were there?” Mark asks, turning his head to look at Donghyuck as they walk. The street is lined with tall trees which create a boulevard and much to Donghyuck’s delight, he notices that there are fairy lights threaded through their branches, illuminating the trees in gold.

There are people everywhere, too, bustling past, and Donghyuck watches as a cyclist weaves through the traffic, a bouquet of flowers in her basket.

“The day before I left home, I think,” Donghyuck recalls, thinking back on the day that now seems so far away. “My family lives by the beach, so I would spend most mornings there, watching the sunrise. It’s been strange not seeing it in so long.”

“That’s beautiful. I can’t imagine growing up so close to the sea. That’s one of the things I love so much about the academy – being so close to the ocean,” Mark says, and it’s strange to hear, because it feels as if he’s discovering little details about the other boy. 

Slowly but surely, he’s getting to know the person behind the instrument. The artist behind the artwork. That makes Donghyuck feel impossibly warm. He wonders if Mark feels the same.

“You’re right, this whole city is beautiful. I feel very grateful to be here,” Donghyuck muses, grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with the city he’s only recently become acquainted with, even though he visited it a few times as a child. It’s like greeting an old friend for the first time in a while.

“I’m glad that you’re here, too,” Mark says without a moment’s hesitation, slowing in his walking and turning his whole body to face Donghyuck. Said boy has to stop, turning on the spot to face Mark, to meet his gaze.

“Really?” Donghyuck asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Mark nods, a warm smile on his face as he starts to walk again. By now they’ve reached the end of the boulevard which slowly turns to grass that descends down onto a sandy beach.

The sun has sunk a little in the sky and its golden kiss has turned pink, a soft sunset making its way into the evening sky. The ocean looks like shimmering light as it reflects the sight, glimmering in the breeze.

“Yes, really. I’ve said this before, but I think you have a gift, Donghyuck,” Mark continues, his voice not once wavering. Donghyuck blushes, suddenly feeling flustered.

“Thank you, Mark,” he says with a smile, meeting the boy’s gaze as they walk down the small wooden boardwalk to the sand. “I’ve always thought you have a gift, too,” Donghyuck admits, peeling off his shoes as Mark does the same. He almost falls over in the process and Mark catches him with one arm, laughing as Donghyuck does too.

“What do you mean, you’ve always thought?” Mark questions after Donghyuck is upright again and they’ve caught their breaths. 

“Nothing,” Donghyuck is quick to say, realising his slip and trying (rather overtly) to cover it up. He’s sure that Mark notices, because his eyes linger on Donghyuck for a moment afterward, confused. He lets it go though, not questioning it further, and Donghyuck is grateful.

They make their way closer to the water, and Donghyuck marvels for a moment in the way that the stars are starting to reveal themselves, speckles of light twinkling in the now lilac sky.

They walk as far as they can until they reach a spot close to the waterline. There are only a few boats out at sea and the rest of the ocean is open water that extends out toward the horizon. Several birds fly overhead, circling, swarming and diving as they sing their evening songs.

Donghyuck dumps his bag by the sand and Mark follows too, leaving behind a pile of belongings and forgotten shoes as they walk down to the water. It feels wonderful to have the sand beneath his toes again, like home, soothing the soreness that resides there from a day of dancing.

It feels even better when he steps into the water, pulling his jeans up slightly to allow himself to stand in the shallows. 

With a smile on his face Mark joins him in the water, stumbling slightly in the sand and Donghyuck reaches out to hold him steady, just as Mark did for him earlier.

“Thank you,” Mark says, breathless from a laugh, and his hands come to touch Donghyuck’s where they reside at his waist. To Donghyuck’s surprise, Mark doesn’t peel them off like he had expected. Instead, he interlaces their fingers until their intertwined hands are falling between them.

That’s when Donghyuck realises how close they are, the ocean water lapping at his ankles as he lifts his gaze to meet Mark’s eyes only a breath away. They stay like that for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes, and Donghyuck’s heart is doing numbers in his chest. They’ve never been this intimate before outside of dancing, and it makes him dizzy, lightheaded, even.

“Your necklace,” Mark says, dropping his gaze to Donghyuck’s neck. He disentangles one of their hands gently to lift it and capture the chain in his fingers. “It’s beautiful.”

Donghyuck smiles as Mark continues to play with it, meeting his eyes again. “Thank you. My mother gave it to me as a parting gift before I left for the academy. I wear it when I can.”

“It’s lovely,” Mark says with a smile, releasing it and intertwining their hands once more. And then he asks something that threatens to send Donghyuck over the edge. “Shall we dance?”

“Dance?” Donghyuck asks, almost incredulous. “I thought you wanted to get to know each other outside of dance,” he jests after a moment, in a more lighthearted tone.

Mark laughs at that, releasing one of Donghyuck’s hands again to rub at the back of his neck. 

Interesting, Donghyuck notes. Perhaps it’s a nervous habit of the other boy’s, he thinks, and it surprises him to discover that he has any at all.

“I do, but I don’t mean ballet,” Mark clarifies, the hand at his neck falling to instead come to Donghyuck’s chin, just the ghost of a touch. Mark’s eyes are almost hooded now, crinkled into half moons as he smiles down at Donghyuck, lifting his gaze with delicate fingers. “Let’s dance like we did that day for the director. Nothing planned, nothing choreographed. Just dance.”

Donghyuck ponders it for a moment, anticipation starting to simmer beneath the surface at the thought, because that almost magical moment has been dancing in ever since it happened. To recreate it, to have it all over again...

Donghyuck nods.

And so, he and Mark walk hand in hand back toward the sand, where the surface is hard enough for movement. Mark retrieves his phone from his bag, putting on a classical violin piece instead of the standard piano, although it still earns a laugh from Donghyuck.

“Mark, this sounds awfully like ballet to me,” he calls, a lighthearted feeling dancing in his chest. It’s only been one evening and yet he feels more comfortable around the other boy already.

“Shh,” Mark tries to shush him with a smile. “You’re right, but that doesn’t mean we have to do ballet.”

Donghyuck sighs playfully, but still takes a position when Mark approaches. The strings start to pluck and then transform into long sweeping notes, and everything fades away except for him, Mark, and the light that dances on the ocean alongside them.

It’s a blur of movement and Donghyuck remembers none of it, save for a few glimpses of contact, of turning and falling and flying, and of the soaring feeling in his chest as he trusts Mark with his body. With his life.

It’s a beautiful thing, Donghyuck decides, as they sway together on the horizon and into the night. Something he hopes to keep forever, if he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! this chapter is a bit longer than the previous ones, but i wanted to cover all of these scenes! we're finally starting to see more interactions between them and i can't wait to show you the rest!
> 
> thank you so much for all the lovely messages and comments and just love that aurora has received, it means the world to me that you're enjoying the story so far. 🌷
> 
> if you're interested in seeing what the dances referenced in this chapter look like (they're both incredible, especially the rose adage, that dance is _hard_ ), then you can find the [rose adage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqejv_BQ7Zg) here and the [pas de deux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfi2g_sFkqQ) here! 
> 
> i love you all very much, and i will see you in the next chapter! 🦋
> 
> find me ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	5. assemblé

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the fifth chapter, _assemblé_. assemblé means to assemble or to join. 
> 
> thank you cara [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter ♡
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is puccini's musetta’s waltz! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VvKnq60-2E) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/1FvMURFQ8Ca7A5sdRVuMir?si=9VMFTJuOTIOD6n3YMF-dkg).
> 
> happy reading ! 🌷

Cameras flash, bathing Mark in pale white light for a moment only to dip him in shadow again, as he stands against the white studio background and poses in second position. Donghyuck watches from behind all the equipment, fascinated once more by the way he assumes such a professional air so easily whenever he’s required to.

Today is the day of shooting photographs for the advertisements and promotions of the production, a day that had been looming on their schedules for some time and had finally arrived. Most of the cast will be featured, but the two leads are required to go first, and so Donghyuck finds himself in a photography studio in town with Mark and the director for company.

Désiré was asked to go first, and when this was announced Mark had sent him a reassuring smile and squeezed his hand before walking into the light. Such a small encounter of intimacy left Donghyuck reeling, as it had been frequently doing recently. 

These kinds of small moments, shared just between the two of them, had become a frequent occurrence. That doesn’t mean, however, that Donghyuck’s heart feels any more equipped to handle them.

It’s still beating hard even ten minutes later, as he watches Mark take on different poses under the director’s instruction, the photographer working hard to capture every single one. Donghyuck is so enthralled, so fascinated by watching Mark work, that he doesn’t hear his name being called the first or even second time.

“Donghyuck, it’s your turn!” the director calls, and Donghyuck can hear the slight exasperation in his voice, but when he turns to meet the older man’s gaze he finds a fondness crinkling in the corner of his eyes. 

“Right,” Donghyuck nods, blushing a little as he realises the entire photography crew is looking at him, and so too is Mark. The other boy relaxes, walking out of the studio space to allow Donghyuck to take his place. They pass each other only for a brief moment, but Donghyuck feels Mark’s hand brush against his.

With his heart beating in his chest – memories of their time at the beach the previous week flooding back, the way Mark had held his necklace so delicately in his fingers and lifted him effortlessly into the air – Donghyuck steps in front of the camera and the bright lights.

He blinks, blinded for a moment and it takes him a second to adjust. Donghyuck hasn’t done anything like this before, considering his studio back home was only small and not at the prestigious level of the academy. Instinctively his eyes search out Mark’s, and when he finds them, relief floods through his body. Mark is smiling at him softly, something reassuring dancing in his eyes.

Donghyuck exhales, reminding himself that he can do this.

It’s surprisingly easy, Donghyuck finds, to pose for a camera. It’s possibly because he has the director’s guidance to assist him, but Donghyuck suspects it might also be because modelling is similar to dancing. There’s a flow to it, positions you can take and expressions to create. 

It comes more naturally to him than he had thought it would, and that leaves a pleasant feeling dancing in his chest when the photographer announces that she has enough individual shots of Donghyuck to work with. 

He steps off the white floor and onto the cold concrete of the rest of the studio, finding relief in the absence of the harsh bright lights. His eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness again, and so he finds himself stumbling slightly, until a delicate hand wraps around his waist to hold him steady.

Donghyuck blinks, his eyes finally adjusting as he looks up to find Mark’s eyes gazing down at him. “Thank you,” he murmurs, feeling heat rise to his cheeks at their closeness, something he had become accustomed to when they dance together, but not like this. Not when they’re just two normal boys with no excuse to be so close to each other. 

“You were great, Donghyuck,” Mark says, his voice firm and secure. Much to Donghyuck’s dismay, his hand leaves Donghyuck’s waist, now that he’s upright. 

Donghyuck laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. It’s a habit he knows he’s picked up from Mark, but that’s something he will have to think about later, because the other boy is still standing inches away, so close Donghyuck swears he can hear his heart beating. Or perhaps that’s his own. 

“So were you,” Donghyuck says instead, stepping back slightly until he feels like he can breathe again. Mark looks like he’s about to say something when the director calls for both of them, announcing that it’s time to do the shots of them together. 

Donghyuck sighs, feeling a little exhausted as weeks of rehearsing and diminished free time creeps up on him. Mark must sense it because with a delicate finger he brushes a stray curl out of Donghyuck’s eyes, just the ghost of a touch, and reassures, “We’re almost there.”

Donghyuck follows Mark onto the set, finding himself standing beside the other boy, awaiting instructions from the photographer. His heart beats hard in his chest and he tries to remember Mark’s words:  _ We’re almost there _ , he tells himself, wondering for a moment what Mark had really meant _. _

Regardless, the words manage to bring him some solace, and Donghyuck finds himself smiling. A moment later Mark throws him a small glance and smiles too when he sees Donghyuck doing the same. Mark says nothing though, and neither does Donghyuck.

“Alright, let’s begin,” the photographer announces, and so they do. 

Just like the individual shoots, it turns out to be easier than Donghyuck had expected, although there are a few moments of intimacy where they reenact poses from the  _ pas de deux _ , and Donghyuck can feel Mark’s hands at his waist or his breath on his skin or his eyes on him. It takes every ounce of strength he has for Donghyuck to remain still, to maintain his gaze and not completely fall apart on the spot.

When it’s over he feels like he can breathe again, grateful for the photographer’s ability to work quickly and Mark’s need to leave to head to his afternoon classes which are exclusively for second years. That leaves Donghyuck with some time to think, to steady his mind as he decides to walk back to the academy instead of taking the bus. 

With each step he takes closer to home, his mind is elsewhere; lost in thought about the boy that always seems to linger in his mind. Donghyuck almost wants to laugh then, as he wonders when it had become so normal for the other boy to be such a large part of his life. 

Only months ago Mark had been a mere stranger – an inspiration to him and nothing more – and now he’s become the soundtrack to Donghyuck’s every day, the first thing he thinks of in the morning and the last before he falls asleep at night.

Donghyuck feels again like he’s falling, and he can’t help but wonder when he will find the ground again.

  
  


─────

  
  


Sweat runs down his forehead as Donghyuck lays in a heap on the floor, feeling his chest rise and fall, and the dull ache of his feet where they’re trapped in the tight constraints of his pointe shoes. There’s a laugh somewhere in distance – Mark’s laugh, deep and warm and resonant – and Donghyuck grins through the exhaustion.

“I think that was our best run yet,” Mark says from somewhere nearby, Donghyuck can’t tell where with his eyes closed. “I think these private practices are paying off.”

Donghyuck hums in agreement, too tired to elaborate despite the fact that he agrees with Mark’s words. Over the past few days, the two had taken to spending a few extra hours in the studio after rehearsal to practice. Even though it was absolutely killing them, their hard work showed.

Rehearsals ran smoother each day and even the director noticed, pleasantly surprised by their drive when they told him about the extra sessions. It doesn’t mean, however, that Donghyuck feels any less like a deflated balloon right now. With all his might he opens his eyes and struggles to sit up.

“You’re more tired than usual,” Mark remarks lightheartedly, and Donghyuck can see him walking closer now that he has his eyes open. It also means he can see the veins that run down Mark’s exposed arms, the way his hair is messy and falls in his eyes, and even his unsuccessful attempts to blow it out of the way.

“It’s because of that hold at the end, with the pirouettes and arabesques. It’s starting to hurt my lower back,” Donghyuck remarks honestly, allowing his head to fall into his hands as he curves his spine, hoping as he often does that stretching this way will magically make the pain go away. 

It doesn’t.

A silence falls that stretches a beat too long. Donghyuck glances up to find that Mark is now standing right above him, a new and concerned look on his face. “You’re in pain?” he asks, and Donghyuck watches his pretty lips move as he says the words.

Donghyuck nods, laughing in a sort of exasperated way. “Yes, but isn’t that the usual for us?” he tries to joke, because he doesn’t like the worry that lines Mark’s face and lives in the creases of his furrowed eyebrows. 

A hand enters Donghyuck’s field of vision – Mark’s – extended for him to hold. Donghyuck takes it, standing until he’s upright, grimacing as his back twinges in pain slightly. Mark says nothing, his worrying eyes searching Donghyuck’s face for a moment too long and it has Donghyuck staring at the floor, feeling a blush coming to his cheeks. 

“I want to show you something,” Mark says much to Donghyuck’s surprise. He must look visibly confused because Mark laughs and rephrases. “Are you free right now?”

Donghyuck nods slowly, his heart starting to race again in his chest and butterflies fluttering in his stomach. “What did you have in mind?”

“Have you ever been to that French restaurant on the corner of the boulevard?” Mark asks, and they’re still so close that Donghyuck could count every strand of hair on Mark’s head if he wanted to. For some reason that thought consumes him for a moment, and in a rare moment of boldness, he lifts a hand to gently brush Mark’s stray hairs out of his eyes.

Then Mark does something that completely and utterly surprises Donghyuck. He blushes.

In a strange mixture of curiosity and confusion, Donghyuck watches. A shade of red dusts Mark’s cheeks, one that is slightly darker than the one of exertion that had been there before. Donghyuck even wonders for a moment if he had imagined it. 

(A very small voice, perhaps in the tune of his heart, whispers a dangerous idea. Donghyuck finds himself trying not to listen to it, in case it’s wrong.)

“No, I haven’t been there,” Donghyuck says when he realises that Mark is still waiting for an answer. The other boy looks more sure of himself again when he responds.

“It’s one of favourite places in the city, and I’d love to take you there,” Mark says, and something flips in Donghyuck’s stomach. “I hope it takes your mind off the pain. You deserve a break,” the other boy adds, his expression looking concerned again, and Donghyuck momentarily forgets the peculiar blush on the other boy’s face.

He wants to argue, to tell Mark that he’s okay, that he’ll be okay. And yet, just as keenly, he wants to spend as much time with the other boy as he can. So he nods with a smile that Mark soon matches. 

“I would love that,” Donghyuck says softly.

  
  


─────

  
  


Donghyuck understands why the quaint little restaurant – dimly lit by golden candles and brought to life by vibrant jazz and laughter – is Mark’s favourite place. He understands, but the entire evening he still can’t take his eyes off Mark. He can’t stop thinking about Mark either, nor the warm and pleasant feeling blossoming inside him like a flower.

Something his grandmother said when he was young resonates in his mind.  _ When you’re in love, Donghyuck, the other person is all that you see. The other details don’t matter.  _ She had laughed then, taking his small face in her hands.  _ La vie en rose is an expression for a reason.  _

Donghyuck hadn’t understood then, too young and distracted by other things to realise the weight of her words. 

But sitting here now, opposite Mark in a small and intimate restaurant, listening to him talk about his love for dance or share stories from his childhood or even attempt lame jokes, Donghyuck can’t wipe the smile off his face. 

Sitting here, opposite Mark, he finally understands what his grandmother had meant.

Donghyuck thought the evening couldn’t get any better, the pain in his back forgotten for once and a lighthearted feeling fluttering in his chest. He stands corrected, though, as he and Mark walk home for the evening, the sun long gone and the stars greeting them with bright faces that light up the sky. 

A bus passes on the street, a moving whir of golden light and people inside, and soon after it passes a silence falls. Both he and Mark had seen it. 

Plastered to its side is a humongous advertisement with Mark and Donghyuck at the centre, gazing into each other’s eyes, Mark’s hand resting at Donghyuck’s shoulder. Words cover their bodies in part, detailing the title and date of the performance. Just as soon as it comes it’s gone, and the bus is disappearing down the street and around a corner, out of sight.

Both he and Mark have stopped in their tracks. A moment passes before Mark turns back to face him, surprise turning his mouth into a small  _ o.  _

“Did you...?” Mark trails off, the words dying in his throat as Donghyuck nods.

“I did.”

There’s another beat of silence before they both burst into laughter, Donghyuck clutching at his abdomen because the muscles are already sore and don’t appreciate the action. He can’t bring himself to care, though, because the lightness in his chest makes it worth it. So too does the sight in front of him, the ridiculous grin on Mark’s face as they start to walk again, basking in the absurdity of it all. 

In that moment Donghyuck feels grateful for where he is, that he got into the academy, that he’s here today. 

He feels even more grateful for who he’s with, the warm presence of the boy beside him resonating louder than words ever could. They don’t say anything on the way home, nor do they need to. From the ghost of a smile that lingers at the corner of Mark’s mouth, a sentiment that matches the hummingbird in Donghyuck’s chest, he imagines – no, he  _ knows  _ – that in some sense, Mark feels the same.

It’s a dangerous thought, but for the evening he allows himself to think it. 

  
  


─────

  
  


Donghyuck’s alarm goes off at an ungodly hour, one where the moon still reigns the night and the sun has yet to rise. Donghyuck fears for his life. 

He does so because across the room Renjun shoots him a glare that would murder him on the spot if looks could kill.

Donghyuck turns the alarm off as quickly as he can, panting into the silence once it’s finally stopped, his heart beating hard in his chest. He hadn’t meant for it to be so loud as to wake Renjun too.

Renjun says nothing more, his eyes falling closed again, so Donghyuck kicks off the covers and makes his bed. He turns then to check on Renjun, finding that his blankets are messed up, and decides to tidy them in hopes of repaying his friend for the rude awakening. 

Donghyuck has just finished tucking his friend back in when he hears the boy murmur something, so softly he has to lower his ear to hear it. “I will kill you.”

With a shudder Donghyuck backs away, grateful when he hears Renjun’s breathing grow heavy, a relieved smile on his face. Despite seeing Renjun everyday, Donghyuck is far from used to his friend’s flair for the dramatics. 

Donghyuck pulls on a pair of jeans and a sweater, because despite spring coming to full bloom, it can still be cool on early mornings like these. He packs his dance bag with his pointe shoes, leggings and leotard before leaving Renjun a post-it note explaining his whereabouts. 

Then, with a liveliness that surprises even Donghyuck considering the dreadful hour, he closes the door softly behind him and makes his way to the courtyard. Mark isn’t there yet, and he finds the bench beneath the tree empty, as no other student would be silly enough to be awake at this hour.

Donghyuck takes a seat on the old wooden bench, realising he’s never sat there before despite passing it so many times. The flowers that hang above his head seem to bloom all year round, but look even more lively this morning, more delicate and sweet with the kiss of spring. 

Donghyuck inhales the scent, and on the exhale hears footsteps approaching. 

Mark Lee enters his field of vision, clad in distressed jeans and an oversized sweater, one that hides his lean muscular frame and makes him look considerably more boyish. It’s cute, endearing even, and at this point Donghyuck isn’t even surprised when his heart flutters. 

“Good morning,” Donghyuck sings, smiling when Mark comes to stop in front of him, a smile on his face too.

“I didn’t pin you for a morning person,” Mark chirps as Donghyuck stands and they walk together out of the gates and onto the streets of their city, which like always are alive with the usual early morning rush. 

“I’m usually not, trust me,” Donghyuck laughs, and Mark sends him a smile as they continue to walk. “But I will always be a morning person for the ocean.”

Mark’s smile softens then, his nose scrunching slightly the way it does when he’s content. “I remember. And I’m exactly the same.”

Something soft blooms in Donghyuck’s heart then, warm and delicate, as if he were melting under the intense gaze of the sun. 

They talk nonsense then, and Donghyuck isn’t even really paying attention, because he’s too busy basking in the intoxicating feeling of being with the other boy again. Even more so because it isn’t just to dance, to rehearse for their performance, but merely for the pleasure of being in each other’s company.

That’s something Donghyuck doubts he will ever get used to, but he doesn’t mind. He’s willing to deal with not being used to something when it comes to Mark.

Soon they reach the beach, by now a familiar sight. Its memory is tinted a shade of rose in Donghyuck’s mind because of the echoing scene of him and Mark dancing there together by the shore, two bodies becoming one. 

They find a seat on the sand pretty quickly, both facing the horizon to await the rising of the sun. Mark is close, so close that their arms are brushing against each other and their thighs touch. It’s way closer than they need to be, considering they have the infinite expanse of the beach to use.

Silence falls, and Donghyuck listens to the crashing of the waves against the shore, to his own breathing, and the way it rises and falls in close tempo with Mark’s. 

It’s not long before the entire beach, previously dark with the shadow of night, is soaked in an unbashful gold. The sand, the sea and even he and Mark are bathed in its warm light as it covers the beach and the city behind it. 

It’s beautiful, the way it sets the sea ablaze. 

Donghyuck exhales at the sight, before he senses eyes on him and discovers they belong to Mark when he turns to find the other boy already watching. It reminds Donghyuck of the first day they saw each other, the way Mark had watched him then. It’s the same now, even though he isn’t dancing at all.

Mark’s eyes are ablaze too, specks of yellow and orange flickering in his irises, and Donghyuck imagines that same light is in his own, too. Their eyes never leave each other, not for a moment, and Donghyuck feels a strange mixture of tranquility and exhilaration pulsing through him.

His heart beats hard in his chest, harder than it should for someone sitting down, when he realises that not only are they close but Mark seems to be leaning imperceptibly closer. Donghyuck feels himself doing the same, and it doesn’t surprise him because he always feels like a magnet drawn to its counterpart when he’s around Mark.

Donghyuck feels breathless, as if the air has been knocked out of his lungs, when Mark’s gaze shifts for the first time in what feels like an eternity. It drops to Donghyuck’s lips instead, lingering there long enough for Donghyuck to notice before moving upward to his eyes again. 

At this point they’re so close Donghyuck swears he can taste Mark on his tongue – and he  _ wants  _ to, to know what the other boy tastes like. They’re a few inches away from closing the distance, only a slight hesitation holding them both back. 

And then Donghyuck feels warmth on his chin as Mark holds it gently with his fingers, guiding his gaze upward to the perfect angle for their lips to fit together. Donghyuck’s eyes flutter closed and his heart somersaults in his chest as he lea––

Just before they can close the distance, a loud sound breaks through the silence.

Donghyuck jumps back, startled, and Mark looks alarmed too, his gaze dropping to his bag where a phone is ringing and vibrating. Mark retrieves it with quick hands, eyeing the screen briefly before accepting the call.

“Lucas?” Mark asks, and his voice is rougher than Donghyuck has heard it sound before. Almost affected. Donghyuck’s heart is hammering in his chest as he listens to the other boy talk.  _ Had that really almost happened?  _

“Oh, god,” Mark says after a brief pause, his eyes widening. Donghyuck leans closer, not understanding. “Oh, god, okay we’ll be right there.”

Mark says goodbye and hangs up, putting his phone down slowly before meeting Donghyuck’s worried gaze again. 

“What happened?”

Mark’s eyes soften, and he stills looks shocked but also a little like he’s about to laugh. “Lucas was calling to ask where I am. Normally before rehearsals we eat breakfast together and I forgot to tell him I’d be out this morning.”

“Oh,” is all Donghyuck manages in response. There’s a blush on his cheeks now, he’s sure of it, and he hopes it merely looks like a reflection of the pink and orange shades dancing in the sky. 

“Donghyuck...,” Mark starts, his eyes searching Donghyuck’s, but then he trails off, unsure of what to say. 

Donghyuck has no idea what to say either, because he has no clue how to articulate what had just almost happened between them. He finds himself still wanting to kiss the other boy, because he’s wanted to do that for months, but the moment has been lost. 

And Lucas is right. Rehearsals start soon. They’d better leave now if they don’t want to be late.

Mark laughs. It’s a warm and light sound, like his laughter always is, except there’s an extra note of bewilderment. It’s infectious, and Donghyuck finds himself laughing too, enjoying the relief it brings from the worries in his chest and thoughts in his mind. 

“We should probably head back to the academy,” Donghyuck says when he catches his breath. Mark nods in agreement with a smile, and yet neither of them make an effort to move. 

They’re just as close as they had been before, and Donghyuck knows he could simply lean forward and capture the other boy’s lips right now, but it’s as if there’s a barrier that hadn’t been there before. As if there were a brief opening of possibility, a moment that was stolen from them. 

Donghyuck can only hope that another one arises. 

“You’re right,” Mark says after a moment, finally leaning back and standing up, dusting the sand off his jeans. Donghyuck misses the closeness, wanting to lean into a warmth that’s no longer there. 

Mark offers him a hand and as always Donghyuck takes it, tidying himself up the same way.

They stand there, taking another moment before they make the journey to class. There’s hesitation in Mark’s face, and he looks like he wants to say something more. Donghyuck wants him to.

“Thank you for watching the sunrise with me, Donghyuck,” Mark says, and even if they both know it isn’t what he had been thinking, it’s just as sweet. 

“You’re welcome, Mark,” Donghyuck responds, a smile on his face, and finally they turn toward the boardwalk that leads home. 

They walk in a pensive silence the entire way back to the academy, and much to Donghyuck’s relief it’s comfortable, if not weighed down a little by what almost transpired between them. 

The ghost of Mark’s lips on his continues to linger throughout rehearsals that day, the thought of what they might feel like on his not once leaving Donghyuck’s mind. 

Mark continues to watch him practice with as much intensity as always, to send him glances and smiles across the room, and it feels even more intimate this time when they perform the  _ pas de deux  _ together. 

Donghyuck doesn’t miss the way Mark’s hand lingers on his lower back throughout the final sequence in an attempt to offer additional support as Donghyuck strains through the movements. That alone is enough to make him smile despite the pain.

Psychologically it helps but he still can’t quite get it right, and finds himself disappointed when the day is over and he has yet to perfect it. The director doesn’t seem worried, nor does Mark, who continues to reassure him with considerate words and gentle smiles that he will get it soon. 

Donghyuck hopes that he’s right.

  
  


─────

  
  


The frustration over the  _ pas de deux  _ eats away at Donghyuck all week until he caves in and books a private studio one evening after rehearsals. He didn’t want to worry Mark and so he had lied to him, telling the other boy that he was going home for a hot shower and early night. 

That seemed to make Mark happy, and he had left with the rest of the class, not seeing Donghyuck stay behind to walk into another studio.

It’s been an hour or so now, and Donghyuck’s back is starting to transition from the usual dull ache to an angry one. His feet are sore and bruised inside his beaten pointe shoes and yet he continues to try again and again, replaying the piece of music and hoping that this time he will get it.

On one attempt he does manage to get it right, and it’s the time that he tries to let go of all expectation and just flow with the music. For a moment he forgets about the pain in his body, of his fear about falling out of the arabesque. His mind goes still, and all he thinks of Mark.

It works, because he completes it successfully for the first time in a long time. An immense feeling of relief and pride floods his bones, and Donghyuck releases some of the frustration through a tense breath before restarting the music and positioning himself to try again.

He tries to do the sequence once more but much to his dismay, this time it doesn’t work. Halfway through it had been going well, with Donghyuck completing the pirouettes successfully and moving onto the arabesques. 

He’s just reached them, thinking that perhaps he will be able to do the sequence successfully again, when the image of Mark’s lips so close to his flashes into mind. The image pulls him out of his flow mid-arabesque, his leg extended behind him at a straight angle, and suddenly pain tears through his back as he falls out of  relevé.

Donghyuck’s body hits the ground, his face, arms and legs kissing the floor as he falls. He rolls onto his back, pain writhing like a snake down his spine, and he allows the world to go dark as he closes his eyes. 

Just before he fades out, he hears familiar footsteps approaching from the door, running toward where he lies still on the floor. He can’t quite place who the feet belong to although they’re familiar, because the sound is muffled as if he were underwater. 

The person calls his name but he can’t really hear it either as the lights go out and he drifts off into the darkness, the pain in his back finally disappearing too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoyed this chapter! let me know what you thought below, if you'd like! 
> 
> (also, whilst the cliffhanger was necessary, i want to promise that nothing bad happens !! there is always a happy ending in my stories, and there will never ever be angst !! the cliffhanger also makes things seem worse than they are)
> 
> thank you for all the love aurora has received, it makes me happy beyond measure to have you all along on this journey with me! i can't wait to share the rest of this story with you 🌷
> 
> i love you all very much as always, and i will see you in the next chapter! i hope you are all well and happy x 🦋
> 
> find me (on the internet, preferably!) ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	6. jeté

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the sixth chapter, _jeté_. jeté means to throw.
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is the paper kites' bloom! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4XdnD5c334) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/44alNkXsYnTyPnkMdohBcx?si=wbKpsnl1Tkm3zhno86y7bw).
> 
> i will see you at the end !! happy reading 🌷

When Donghyuck wakes again, it’s in an infirmary he didn’t know the academy had. He can tell that much by the unfamiliar bedsheets he lays on, and the muffled conversation being held by his bedside between an unfamiliar voice and a familiar one.

Donghyuck tries to make out their words but fails, as they’re speaking too softly no doubt to avoid waking him. Their efforts are in vain though for he is already awake, and so Donghyuck opens his eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the light.

The infirmary is small and white, but not clinical. The windows are open, allowing the morning sun to filter in, the curtains lining them swaying gently in the breeze. Donghyuck looks up to find two people standing above him. 

One is a tall man Donghyuck doesn’t recognise, with dark hair and round glasses, and the other is exactly who Donghyuck suspected it to be. 

“Donghyuck, you’re awake,” Mark says softly, and Donghyuck is relieved to find a tenderness in his eye instead of concern. _Everything must be okay_ , Donghyuck thinks, allowing the tension in his chest to dissipate a bit.

Donghyuck hums, still only half conscious and struggling to form words, but it comes out as more of a pained groan. The smile on Mark’s face only grows as he kneels beside Donghyuck, taking his hand and intertwining their fingers gently. Donghyuck lets his head roll to the side to meet Mark’s gaze, and their faces are so close that Donghyuck is reminded for a moment of what almost happened by the beach.

“Donghyuck, I’m Doctor Kim,” the older man in the room says, a polite smile on his face as he steps closer to the bed. Much to Donghyuck’s relief, Mark doesn’t pull away. “You can call me Doyoung, if you like.”

Donghyuck returns the smile, eyes flicking to Mark’s for a moment and then back to the doctor. Mark never looks away.

“How much do you remember?”

It’s a blunt question, one that has Donghyuck staring at the ceiling, blinking as he tries to recall the events. “I remember practicing by myself in the studio one evening,” he pauses, not missing the way Mark’s face grimaces for a moment, “and I pushed myself too far. I had a fall, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

The doctor nods, taking his chin in his hand as he strokes it pensively. “That’s most of what happened, so your memory must be intact. The good news is that you don’t seem to have a concussion, and the injury in your back is just a pulled muscle, nothing more.”

There’s a beat of silence as Donghyuck breathes in the gravity of the doctor’s words, relief flooding his body as he knows perfectly well that a more serious injury would render him unable to perform in the show. The doctor gives him a moment, clearly a very patient person, and when Donghyuck meets his eyes again he continues.

“The bad news is that you have been barred from partaking in rehearsals today and tomorrow, as per the director’s orders. It’s especially important that you rest considering the dress rehearsal is next week.”

Donghyuck nods, feeling an odd mixture of relief and disappointment; both grateful for a break from dancing and also frustrated that he pushed himself too far and isn’t able to practice for a few days. 

Donghyuck thinks that the doctor is done, that that was all he had to say and is mentally preparing himself to stand when–

“Mark will also not be participating in rehearsals.”

“What?” Donghyuck asks immediately, unable to mask the confusion in his voice. Said boy squeezes his hand reassuringly, but Donghyuck focuses on the doctor, hoping that he can somehow telepathically read the explanation on Doyoung’s face. He can’t.

“Mark here is the reason you’re okay, Donghyuck,” the doctor says, as if that explains anything, but Donghyuck only finds himself more confused. He meets Mark’s gaze then, staring into the other boy’s eyes and not looking away even as the doctor continues.

“Mark, why don’t you explain?” the doctor sighs, stepping back slightly before disappearing to the other side of the room completely. It’s a rather indiscreet attempt to give them space, but why they might need space or privacy Donghyuck can’t understand. 

Mark takes a deep breath, his eyes softening with the promise of a smile. “I had forgotten my glasses back at the studio and didn’t realise until later when I was in bed trying to read,” Mark explains, his free hand drawing circles into the skin of Donghyuck’s forearm. 

Donghyuck tries to ignore the way the touch makes him shiver and focus instead on what Mark is saying.

“I walked back to the studio to get them but instead I found you,” a grave look appears on Mark’s face, one Donghyuck has never seen before, and it scares him. Both because he knows he’s the cause of it and because he doesn’t know what to do with that realisation.

“I came in just as you fell. I was the one who carried you to the infirmary, who called on Doyoung. I just worry about what would have happened had I not been there. It was luck, really. A stroke of fate,” Mark pauses his talking but his fingers never stop creating shapes in Donghyuck’s skin. 

It’s all too much information to handle and for a moment Donghyuck is breathless, trying to get a grip on his heart that flutters and aches in ways that frighten him. In ways it never has before.

And then suddenly it passes like a storm, and Donghyuck is left with a strange sort of emptiness in his chest; a sort of clarity. A warmth blossoms there, not nervous or fluttery like it had been before, but new and _sure_. 

“Perhaps I was meant to fall, so you could catch me,” Donghyuck muses before he can stop himself, but he doesn’t _want_ to stop himself. Mark’s eyes widen in surprise and he sits back slightly, stopping his ministrations to take Donghyuck’s hand in both of his.

A grin graces his features, bright and bold like an unapologetic sunrise, and Donghyuck finds himself smiling too, although there’s no real reason to.

“You’re ridiculous, you know,” the other boy murmurs, eyeing Donghyuck’s smaller hand in his. And then he looks up, just in time for Donghyuck to say:  
  
“I didn’t even know you wear glasses.”

Mark laughs at that, a sweet summery sound that fills the otherwise silent infirmary with warmth. So too does it fill the dull ache in Donghyuck’s heart, in his head and in his back, replacing the pain with a lightness that makes him feel like he could fly. 

Donghyuck smiles as the last tendrils of laughter leave Mark’s lips, though his smile never fades as their eyes meet. A comfortable silence falls and they spend a few minutes like that, staring into each other’s eyes. Who knows what Mark is thinking, but Donghyuck wonders as he always does.

He wonders if perhaps the other boy is thinking the same thing as he is.

“I think we need to talk,” Mark says, but not any earlier than Donghyuck says the exact same thing, and they’re left staring at each other in awe for a moment. Donghyuck nods, keeping silent in fear that if he speaks again Mark will say the same thing again.

As he waits, Donghyuck muses for a moment that they have become so in sync that their connection transcends _pas de deux._ That perhaps it has become something more. 

“When do you want to talk?” Mark asks after a moment of hesitating.

“Perhaps this afternoon? I think I need to rest a while longer,” Donghyuck admits, lifting their intertwined hands slightly to eye the way his tan skin meets Mark’s pale skin. It fascinates him now more than ever for some reason. That earns him a soft laugh which makes him smile instinctively.

“I second that!” comes a shout from Doyoung, who Donghyuck had completely forgotten was still in the room. 

“Of course. Why don’t you come to my dorm this evening and we can talk. I don’t have a roommate so it will mean more privacy for us,” Mark stands then, helping Donghyuck to sit up and swing his legs out of the bed. His bare feet make contact with the cold floor and he’s embarrassed to find that he’s still in his dance clothes from yesterday.

“You don’t have a roommate?” Donghyuck inquires. He had simply assumed everyone in the academy had roommates just like the first years, so the idea comes as a surprise.

Mark shakes his head as he helps Donghyuck to stand slowly, finding that he can do so albeit with a small twinge of protest from his lower back. “Second and third years don’t have roommates, only first years. I think they do it to help you make friends, and then as you get older they give you more space.”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Donghyuck admits, only to soon be distracted by the way he and Mark are still holding hands as he slowly shuffles toward the infirmary door. Mark has his dance bag over his shoulder and allows Donghyuck to lean against him for support. 

“Thank you doctor Doyoung,” Donghyuck says sincerely when they are met with an eager Doyoung at the door. “For everything.”

“You’re most welcome, Donghyuck. Mark, make sure this one rests properly,” Doyoung gestures at Donghyuck as he eyes Mark seriously, and Donghyuck doesn’t know if he should laugh or protest, considering that it is really his fault he ended up in this situation and probably isn’t to be trusted. 

They wave goodbye to the doctor and continue down the hallway, which Donghyuck soon realises belongs to the staff building. They pass the director’s office with its open door and empty chair. Donghyuck eyes it for a moment before noting, “Rehearsals must have started already.”

They pause for a moment outside the door as Mark stops, turning instead to face Donghyuck and take both of his hands in his. “Don’t worry about that, okay? The director himself ordered you to rest, so don’t be too hard on yourself.”

The words are sincere and Donghyuck shouldn’t be surprised at this point because he knows Mark is always like this; honest, genuine and kind. But still he finds himself blushing, his cheeks heating up as he lifts his gaze to meet Mark’s. 

“But what about you?” he can’t help but ask. Mark’s eyes soften and a smile comes to his lips. Donghyuck eyes them for a moment too long, as in the silence of the hallway he remembers the way they had looked so close to his, so soft and delicate and kissable. 

He takes a moment to curse Lucas and his poorly timed phone calls. 

“The director ordered me to rest, too. And to look after you,” Mark steps impossibly closer and there’s a beat of silence. 

“And Donghyuck?”

A hand comes to Donghyuck’s chin and he follows its guidance willingly, basking for a moment in the way Mark’s eyelashes remind him of the petals of a flower from this close. “I want to look after you.”

Donghyuck wants to kiss Mark. It’s an undeniable fact at this point; a reality he struggles against now more than ever as Mark watches him patiently, as if perhaps the other boy is trying to read him as well. As if perhaps in this moment Mark wants to kiss him, too. 

But he knows they can’t, and Mark probably knows it, too. They have to talk first. And so that’s how Donghyuck finds himself back in his empty dorm not ten minutes later, completely silent without Renjun’s constant bickering which he somehow finds himself missing. 

Although he knows, deep down in the quiet whisperings of his heart that he has tried to ignore for so long, that what he misses in this silence is not the banter of his friend but Mark’s gentle touch that leaves him breathless. 

The same one that has him reeling even now when he’s not even here. 

Even when it’s just Donghyuck, sitting alone in his bedroom, his heart still lying on the shore of a beach being washed out to sea with every rolling wave. 

─────

One nap, movie and brief crisis later, Donghyuck stands outside what he believes to be Mark’s dorm room, according to the boy’s earlier text message. He hesitates for a moment, fist raised but holding back, barely visible beneath the oversized hoodie he’s wearing.

Donghyuck is so used to walking around the academy in tight-fitting dance wear that it feels strange to stand in its hallways in a hoodie and jeans, but the director had ordered the day off and so there was little more that he could do. (Besides, Donghyuck supposes it’d be a bit strange if he showed up at Mark’s place in a leotard and leggings.)

He isn’t given a moment longer to ponder potential outfits and their social ramifications because the door is swinging open unannounced to reveal Mark in a similarly casual outfit, freshly washed hair fluffy on his head and once again Donghyuck is reminded that outside of the studio, Mark is just another boy. (Just another boy that he’s completely enamoured with, but that’s something to think about later.)

“Donghyuck, I had a feeling you were prematurely ageing outside my door,” Mark says with a ridiculously fond smile, the one that scrunches up his nose and crinkles his eyes as he beckons a speechless Donghyuck inside.

“I wasn’t,” he tries to defend but forgets himself when he sees Mark’s room. It’s enough to silence him because it’s so large, with delicate white walls and a grand window that reveals a slowly setting sun over the other side of the city behind the academy. A large bed lays at the centre and a desk beneath the windowsill, covered in plants and a sketchbook.

“Are all the second year rooms like this?” Donghyuck asks after he’s completed another rotation, making an effort to close his mouth. Mark laughs as he closes the door and steps into the room, not too far from Donghyuck.

“Yep, and it makes all the hard work worth it,” Mark says, guiding Donghyuck toward the bed which he perches on stiffly; partly because of the pain in his back and partly because he has no idea how to act sitting on Mark’s bed.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure these rooms are exactly what keep people going,” Donghyuck returns, and as Mark laughs Donghyuck finds himself relieved that he feels just as comfortable around Mark even after everything. (Perhaps it is also because of the bold little ray of hope, that Mark feels the same way, that has made a home for itself in his heart.)

A silence falls as Mark sits beside Donghyuck, shifting his weight so that they’re facing each other. It’s a silence that Donghyuck doesn’t know how to break, and so he waits and hopes the other boy will do it instead.

Instead of talking Mark stands, moving toward his desk and placing a record on a turntable Donghyuck hadn’t noticed earlier. It crackles to life and the room fills with a song Donghyuck hasn’t heard in years – it’s an old French singer, one Donghyuck has only ever heard his mother play as she would cook dinner each evening, humming the tune softly under her breath as a smaller Donghyuck would dance around the living room. 

He smiles.

Mark moves toward the bed again, taking his place beside Donghyuck and facing him just as he had before. “I don’t really know where to start,” he eventually admits, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

Then, Donghyuck has an idea.

“Why don’t you let me?” he tries, determined to speak while the bravery lasts. 

Mark glances up, a confused look on his face but he nods anyway. Donghyuck takes a deep breath, trying to remember his courage. The other boy waits patiently, somehow communicating silently that Donghyuck can take his time, but soon he finds the words.

“You’re the reason I started dancing.”

Donghyuck watches as Mark’s face blooms into a deeper shade of confusion, his eyes widening and his lips parted in a small _o._ It’s a bold statement but they came here to talk and so Donghyuck saw no point in delaying things any further. 

“What do you mean?” Mark asks after a moment. The way he has angled himself toward Donghyuck means that the light of the setting sun reaches his skin, dipping his skin in an unusual shade of gold and setting his brown eyes ablaze. They look amber, like warm honey, a warmth that Donghyuck wants to lose himself in. 

He feels now exactly as he did on that first day so many weeks ago, seeing Mark Lee again for the first time in years. He feels now the weight of the realisation that the boy who danced through his childhood had become one of the most beautiful people he has ever seen.

“What I mean is that, I started dancing after I watched you perform on television when I was nine. I mean that I came to the academy because of you, and I auditioned for the production for the chance to be noticed by you,” Donghyuck laughs then, almost bewildered, “As it turns out, it was a chance to even dance with you.”

Silence falls as Mark seems to digest his words, and Donghyuck doesn’t mind waiting because he feels so relieved, that finally his truth is out in the open. Mark had become more than a distant idol to him so rapidly, and yet Donghyuck had held onto his secret as if he could not let it slip.

He’s so grateful that he did when Mark’s expression shifts and a warm smile takes its place. There’s something shimmering in his eyes, perhaps the hint of tears, and Donghyuck feels the same overwhelming release himself.

“Donghyuck, that’s beautiful. I had no idea,” Mark takes his hand then and Donghyuck’s heart flips in his chest at the contact, as if it were the first time they touched.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Donghyuck responds, unable to meet Mark’s eyes so he lowers his gaze. “I was afraid of what you’d think,” he pauses. “That perhaps you’d think me disingenuous. That my interest in you wasn’t real.”

Donghyuck blushes, furiously at that, as he realises his mistake. The words he had accidentally let slip echo in the silence between them, and he feels Mark still beside him as he hears the words too, the ones he can’t take back. Donghyuck breathes, inhaling and exhaling slowly as he tries to draw on the strength that was in his heart earlier.

“Your interest in me?” Mark repeats after a moment, his voice small and hesitant. As if he doesn’t want to overstep or say the wrong thing. Donghyuck forces his gaze up, meeting Mark’s head on with a new found determination. 

He had promised himself to leave any inhibitions he had at the door when it came to Mark. It had been essential for developing trust as dance partners, and as time had proven, it had also been essential for the sake of his heart.

“It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about today. I,” Donghyuck blinks, his heart stuttering in his chest. Mark’s eyes soften, as if he has already heard what Donghyuck is going to say. “I like you, Mark.”

A moment of silence, and then Donghyuck clarifies, “As more than a _pas de deux_ partner.”

“I know,” comes the soft response, uttered quickly as if Mark fears Donghyuck might slip away if he takes too long. That sentiment is in his touch, too, as he interlaces their fingers urgently, lifting Donghyuck’s hand to his lips and placing the ghost of a kiss there, like a promise.

It’s a perfect imitation of the first day they ever spoke, a parallel that’s not lost on Donghyuck. 

He smiles, because really Donghyuck always _knew_ that Mark _knew_. His heart had always known, but his head had been too afraid to admit it. And Donghyuck isn’t surprised either when the next few words leave Mark’s lips. 

“I like you too, Donghyuck. But I think this you already know.”

There’s a moment of quiet between them where nothing is said, each taking a moment to sit with their hearts, with the words that have finally been spoken after remaining unsaid for too long. Donghyuck listens, both to the pleasant humming of his heart – no longer fluttering but singing like a bird – and to the tender piano notes which drift from the record player.

Beneath the sun Mark is now completely golden, a portrait of a boy on fire, bathed in the light and Donghyuck can see it all so clearly now. He can see that this was always meant to be; that just as Désiré awakes Aurora from her eternal slumber, Mark had been the one to both plant the seed of a passion in his heart and set it alight.

The notes play on, as does the silence, and Donghyuck finds himself leaning in slightly, guided forward by the sense of yearning in his heart. Mark does the same, as intuitively as when they dance together, and Donghyuck knows that this time he won’t let the moment slip away – that this time they’ve been given another chance, and he will take it. 

Mark’s lips are only inches away and Donghyuck lets his eyes flutter closed, bathing in the warmth of the sunlight and the soft music and the feeling of Mark’s lips so close to his. However, just before their lips meet halfway, Mark pauses, and when he doesn’t press forward again Donghyuck opens his eyes, confused.

His heart sinks a little in his chest, the ray of hope dimming its light for a moment, but it passes as soon as Mark speaks.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Mark says, and even though it’s to Donghyuck’s relief, he also kind of wants to punch the other boy. Instead he settles for a disappointed huff which makes Mark smile.

“Really, Lee?” he whines, cocking his head to the side but his smile betrays him when Mark takes his hand instead. Donghyuck supposes that with Mark he has to be patient; that everything is a careful dance, a choreographed duet and he can do nothing but trust the other boy and follow his lead.

Without another word Mark is standing, pulling Donghyuck to his feet gently by the hand and leading him out the door of his room. Soon they’re walking the hallways, moving down the steps and out into the courtyard – albeit carefully for Donghyuck’s benefit – and Mark still won’t give an inkling as to where they’re going.

“Mark, what are we doing?” Donghyuck tries again fruitlessly, but the mischievous smile on Mark’s face tells him he’s not going to get an answer. Resigned, Donghyuck merely follows, although an amalgamation of confusion and wonder blooms in his chest when he realises where they are: the studio.

The sun has almost set now, soaking the studio’s white walls in shades of pink and lilac, soft and delicate and so similar to the feeling in Donghyuck’s chest.

“Mark?” is all he manages to ask as he stands at the entrance to the studio – the one they auditioned in weeks ago – beside said boy. Mark’s hand is at his lower back now, resting there delicately as his gaze wanders from the space to Donghyuck’s face.

Mark steps forward without warning and Donghyuck misses the feeling of his touch at his back, following him instinctively deeper into the studio until they’re standing at the centre – together, face to face. There’s still a smile on Mark’s face, but it’s no longer playful where it is instead fond.

“Do you trust me?” is the first thing Mark says since they left his dorm. It’s a question and not an answer to anything Donghyuck has previously asked, and he knows he should feel frustrated but really all he can feel, flooding his body like the rising tides of the ocean, is love. Nothing but stupid, ridiculous, love.

“Yes,” Donghyuck says, a delicate smile coming to his face as he gives in completely and allows Mark to lead. And then, in a moment of honesty that surprises them both, Donghyuck adds, “More than anyone else.”

“Then take my arm,” Mark instructs, offering a hand for Donghyuck to take. Without hesitation he does, and when their fingers connect – even though they have done this so many times before – Donghyuck feels every synapse and nerve in his body set on fire by the other boy’s touch. 

This point of connection, like the tentative embrace of the creation of Adam, is everything to Donghyuck. It brings with it memories swirling in his mind like a mirage of all the times they have danced together; in the studio, on the beach, and in Donghyuck’s mind long after he parted with the other boy. 

Donghyuck is pulled from his thoughts when in one swift, though cautious, movement, Mark lifts Donghyuck onto his chest. A surprised laugh escapes Donghyuck’s lips as he clings on for dear life, his arms wrapping around Mark’s neck and his legs around his waist.

“I didn’t realise this is what you had in mind,” Donghyuck says, looking over his shoulder to eye their position in the mirror. Mark is strong, and after every lift they have performed without a single fall, Donghyuck trusts him with his body completely. Still, he struggles to understand why Mark had been so eager to lift him like this, eager enough to delay a kiss.

“Not quite,” Mark breathes out, straining slightly, his breath fanning over Donghyuck’s chest. “When I saw how disappointed you were earlier when Doyoung said you couldn’t dance for a few days, I had this stupid idea.”

“And what’s that?” Donghyuck returns playfully, a strange excited feeling twirling in his chest.

“That I could dance for you,” Mark says, his tone shifting so suddenly to sincere, his eyes meeting Donghyuck’s in a way that leaves him breathless. “That I could hold you and dance, and perhaps, through me, you could dance too.”

Something overtakes Donghyuck then. An intense feeling of desire, of confusion, of longing and hope and lust and love, and it blinds him. It guides him, until Donghyuck is closing the distance between them _finally_ , crashing his lips against Mark’s unapologetically. This time he doesn’t let the moment slip away. He grabs it and holds on, refusing to let go.

Mark makes a surprised sound and Donghyuck feels a sense of deep satisfaction – that for once he has managed to fluster the other boy, to have the upper hand – but not a moment later Mark is sighing into the kiss and one of his hands is shifting to Donghyuck’s curls to run his fingers through them.

Donghyuck pulls Mark impossibly closer with a hand cupping his cheek, losing himself in the intoxicating feeling of Mark’s lips on his, in the sweet taste and the way it makes his heart race wildly in his chest. They fit together better than Donghyuck could have expected, as if the way their bodies align, their lips do too.

They stay like that for a moment, Donghyuck in Mark’s arms, clinging to him for dear life but it isn’t because he’s afraid he’ll fall – he knows that will never happen when it comes to Mark – but because he feels like he’s flying again, like a magnolia riding the wind, and he needs Mark to hold him here, to ground him to the earth like the roots of its tree; like home. 

They pull apart after a moment, both completely breathless, foreheads bumping together as Donghyuck smiles, panting through the grin on his lips and the soaring feeling in his heart. The other boy laughs, a sort of pleased but surprised sound and one that Donghyuck hasn’t heard before.

“I thought you’d never kiss me,” Mark says, playful all the same even though they’re both out of breath. For that quip, Donghyuck wants to kiss the other boy silly until he’s silent because they both know that it’s hardly Donghyuck’s fault they haven’t been able to kiss until now.

And yet, in this moment, Donghyuck doesn’t regret the delay at all. Kissing by the beach or in Mark’s apartment would have been just as lovely as this, but there’s something infinitely more special about their first being in the dance studio of the academy that Donghyuck had always dreamed of attending, a dream born thanks to the boy in his arms.

From somewhere nearby there’s a sudden commotion – a mix of laughter, cheering, whooping and whistling – and it bursts their bubble so suddenly that they both jump, Donghyuck falling out of Mark’s arms. Mark catches him instantly and presses him to his chest, holding him there protectively as they both turn to the entrance, and _oh._

The audition studio, of course.

The entire cast of the production and the director stand outside the studio, behind the glass wall, and it doesn’t take Donghyuck long to find the faces of his friends too. Renjun sends him a wink and Jeno and Jaemin share identical grins, the former offering him an enthusiastic thumbs up. 

Donghyuck looks to the director, who at first glance appears to wear a blank, serious expression. Except Donghyuck finds when he looks for a moment longer that there’s something twinkling in his eye, so subtly that Donghyuck knows it’s just for him and Mark to see.

“I didn’t realise we had an audience,” Mark notes, and Donghyuck laughs at that.

“We could always pretend this was part of the _pas de deux_ ,” Donghyuck jokes in response, and it earns him Mark’s attention as he looks away from the crowd and back down at Donghyuck. Donghyuck meets his gaze, watching in his peripheral vision as the director ushers the dancers back into the rehearsal studio and out of sight.

The feeling in Donghyuck’s chest – a delicate dancing feeling like the first sign of spring, when the flowers open their petals for the first time in a year and the sun greets them with its warmth – is mirrored perfectly in the expression on Mark’s face.

The delicate smile on his lips, the soft, almost faded look in his eye, and the gentle dusting of rouge along his cheeks. He looks nothing short of _in love_ , and Donghyuck thinks he might just faint at the sight alone.

But then the smile on Mark’s lips fades slightly and is replaced by furrowed eyebrows instead. “Donghyuck?” 

“Hm?” Donghyuck murmurs, lowering his hand from Mark’s neck to trace over his heart, delighting in the way it beats as furiously as Donghyuck’s own. 

“You told me earlier that I’m the reason you started dancing,” Mark recounts, his eyes flitting between each of Donghyuck’s, as if searching. Donghyuck isn’t sure for what, but he listens and nods slowly, not sure where this is going.

“Well, I want you to know something,” Mark says, dropping his gaze to Donghyuck’s neck. His hand retrieves the necklace from beneath Donghyuck’s shirt and thumbs over the pendant at the centre of the chain. “I may be the reason you started dancing, but you’re the reason that I continue.”

Time slows and the room seems to spin, rotating in a whirlwind until there’s nothing left except him and Mark, connected by the necklace around Donghyuck’s neck and the memory of a kiss shared only moments ago. Donghyuck’s heart beats so hard in his chest he’s worried it might stop as he tries to process what Mark has said.

Except he doesn’t know how; how to come to terms with the idea that he inspires Mark the same way he has always inspired Donghyuck. Words have never been his strong suit, especially around the other boy, and so he finds himself doing the only thing he can think of in that moment – leaning forward and recapturing Mark’s lips, hoping that in the way he kisses him Mark can understand. 

That perhaps when it comes to them, they don’t need words.

Mark does understand – it’s obvious. It’s in the way he responds just as passionately, in the way he holds Donghyuck so delicately, in the way Donghyuck has never felt more safe so far from home. 

And in that moment, Donghyuck realises something; home has never been a place, a city or even a house. It has always been where the heart is, and for as long as he can remember, his has always been with Mark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heheheh they finally kissed !! if you liked this chapter, please leave a kudos or let me know what you thought in the comments (i sound like a youtuber ahhaha) 💗thank you for your patience and for not killing me for the previous chapter's cliffhanger !!
> 
> i love you all very much, thank you for reading and just being here with me, and i will see you in the next chapter! i hope you are all happy, well and safe 🦋
> 
> thank you my dear [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter as always ♡
> 
> find me ! come talk to me too !! ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	7. arabesque

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the seventh chapter, _arabesque_. an arabesque is a position on one leg with the other behind either á terre (on the round) or en l'air (in the air). 
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is the debussy's arabesque ! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/53zrZribB4xc2uRzZXWKCT?si=eAMbhOb0Tfmtfxcm1fkszg).
> 
> happy reading my lovesss 🌷

Donghyuck had thought that the first time Mark kissed him, it would be all he could think about for weeks – perhaps even months. He wasn’t completely wrong about that, as the stolen moment of intimacy shared not so privately in the dance studio last week always seems to be in the back of his mind. 

But in truth, Donghyuck has rarely had a moment to dwell on it for longer than a second.

After two days of rest he and Mark returned to rehearsals immediately in haste for the dress rehearsals that were only around the corner. Donghyuck found his back healing well. Even though the doctor and director (and Mark) kept insisting he take it easy, Donghyuck found himself returning to dance with a new found vigour. 

The moves somehow became easier and he was finally able to lose himself in the flow of the dance once more. As if when his back healed, something else much deeper did, too. 

“Have you managed to do the final part yet?” Renjun asks over the music, words shared between the two of them in the corner of the studio. 

It snaps Donghyuck to attention and he has no idea how long he had been lost in thought. When he realises that Désiré is only just entering the forest with his knights, Donghyuck thanks his lucky stars he hadn’t missed his part. 

Renjun’s words replay in his mind and Donghyuck winces, for a moment transported back to a lonely and dark studio, remembering the way the cold wooden floor had felt beneath his spasming back.

“Not yet,” Donghyuck responds, gnawing nervously at his bottom lip as he watches Mark dance around the space to the counts of the director. 

“I haven’t tried it since...,” Donghyuck trails off, somehow unable to finish his sentence.

Renjun understands.

With a comforting hand on Donghyuck’s bare shoulder, his friend says, “Something tells me you will do it this time. I can feel it.”

Donghyuck sends him a grateful smile that matches his new but small feeling of hope, unable to do anything more because the music is shifting, the lilac fairy entering the stage and it’s time for Donghyuck to do the same.

He’s in the flow once he and Mark are only a pirouette apart. Between them stands the lilac fairy, keeping Désiré away from Aurora for as long as she can. 

It doesn’t last though, as soon she is slipping away and he and Mark are near, moving through the steps of their _pas de deux_ as if no time has passed since they last did it together.

Donghyuck loses himself in the music, in the beating of his heart and the pulsing of Mark’s own beneath his fingertips. The director calls corrections and praise over the music and it only barely registers. 

He can hear Mark’s breathing. Can feel the muscles in his body working to hold Donghyuck, a strength that Donghyuck melts into like honey, realising in that moment that somewhere along the way Donghyuck had begun to trust Mark with his life.

The notorious final part of the duet is approaching rapidly, and so Donghyuck takes a few deep breaths, focusing all his will on completing the steps. 

A _pas de bourrée_ later and Donghyuck is running toward the audience, Mark’s hands are at the smallest part of his waist and he’s lifting his leg to the front, rotating it in a semicircular motion that traces the path of the moon until it’s extending behind him and he’s in full arabesque, stable at last in Mark’s arms.

Donghyuck spins and spins again, falling into the final arch and his heart soars when his back doesn’t ache. In fact, it’s the opposite. Donghyuck feels lighter than ever; as if he were a magnolia flower dancing on the currents of the wind, no slave to gravity. 

They step into the final pose, the music fades, and instead of silence there’s applause.

“Bravo, Mark. Donghyuck,” the director shouts over other indistinguishable calls of encouragement from the cast. 

Donghyuck looks over his shoulder to find Mark beaming, a lightness dancing in his eyes that doesn’t dwindles when their eyes meet. Donghyuck returns the smile effortlessly. 

_I’ve done it_ , Donghyuck thinks, his chest swelling with pride; with happiness _._

“You did it, Donghyuck,” Mark reads his thoughts aloud, stepping closer and taking Donghyuck’s hand tentatively in his.

It’s a discrete move, something most in the room wouldn’t be able to see, and Donghyuck laughs.

“What?” Mark asks, but he’s smiling as if he’s already heard the joke.

“You’re shy to hold my hand now, when just the other day you kissed me in front of the entire ballet.”

The honest comment must come as a shock because Mark blushes furiously, lowering his gaze. Donghyuck smiles, imagining that if their hands weren’t intertwined now then Mark would be rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Come on,” Mark murmurs bashfully when the director calls for another run of the same scene. Donghyuck steps back to the side of the room but the smile on his face never dims.

It doesn’t on Mark’s face either, and Donghyuck watches with a light feeling in his chest as Mark runs through his parts with a brightness to his eyes – one that Donghyuck knows is there because of him. 

───── 

The dress rehearsal comes around faster than Donghyuck had thought it would and soon he finds himself standing beneath blinding white stage lights, gazing out into an empty theatre.

It’s grander than he thought it would be too, although he shouldn’t be surprised considering it’s the academy’s performance. Chandeliers drape from its high arching ceilings and red velvet curtains disguise the nosebleed sections.

Donghyuck feels for a moment as if he’s a ballet dancer from the previous century, as if he were just another statue of art on a stage for the audience to admire.

It’s a strange feeling and it stays with him as he moves across the stage, unable to shake the sense that he is dancing where many great dancers have danced before. 

“That’s it, Donghyuck!” the director calls from his spot in front of the stage where he and several other academy teachers are watching.

Through the blinding lights he can barely see them, nor the rest of the cast watching from the audience beyond, as he runs through Aurora’s solo from the first act. 

He’s done it many times before during rehearsals, but never on a stage nor in costume and it feels unfamiliar; not bad, but _new_ . The silver tiara on his head – its metal arching into the shapes of roses – feels like it completes him, balancing him as he completes Aurora’s sequence of _piqué_ turns without a hitch.

The audience claps and Donghyuck runs off stage, into the wings full of crew members he doesn’t know by name but recognises from the many hours they’ve already spent at the theatre today. 

The rest of the day runs smoothly and Donghyuck enjoys the scenes he’s not in because it means he gets to sit in the audience and just watch, as his friends do their parts and Mark does his too.

It also means that when they get a lunch break Donghyuck and his friends find a spot in a nearby park for a spontaneous picnic. Mark left earlier with a few other second years, one of them Donghyuck recognising as Lucas, to buy lunch from a cafe. 

Donghyuck had bid him goodbye with a shy kiss to his cheek. That had earned some shameless smiles from his friends who otherwise said nothing, much to his relief. 

“How are you feeling about the show?” Jeno asks them all from where he lies on his back in the grass. The sun is shining down and his eyes are closed to keep the bright light out, but Donghyuck keeps his open. 

It’s a nice break from the artificial lights and dark spaces of the theatre, the sun’s warmth reviving him with its gentle kiss. 

“Nervous,” Renjun admits, playing absentmindedly with a thread in the picnic blanket. “It’s our first show.”

Jaemin hums. “I guess it’s only natural. I know we’ll do well, though.”

“We’ve worked really hard,” Jeno adds, then all his friends’ eyes are on him and Donghyuck realises he hasn’t said anything.

He takes a moment to listen to himself, the way his heart is thrumming gently in his chest. “I don’t really know how I feel,” he admits. “I’m okay now, but I usually get nervous right before.”

Renjun laughs in understanding and Donghyuck smiles. He’s more of a panic-right-before kind of dancer, and he’s not sure whether that’s better or worse.

“We’re in this together,” Jaemin says sweetly, a sentiment that must be too cheesy for Renjun because he punches Jaemin in the shoulder. Said boy exclaims in pain and proceeds to tackle Renjun to the grass in retaliation.

They roll around in a tangle of limbs and Donghyuck scoffs, his eyes finding their way to Jeno who rolls his eyes playfully in response. Donghyuck supposes he isn’t really one to talk – considering how he had found love in the academy too.

Donghyuck smiles. He had found love, so easily that it’s as if it had always been waiting for him behind the white walls of the academy.

───── 

Growing up, Donghyuck had always had a romanticised view of performances; of costumes and makeup, live orchestras and standing ovations. Of warm dressing rooms and popping champagne bottles, of last minute red lipstick and new pointe shoes.

It didn’t take him long to realise that performances are rarely so idyllic. 

It’s more like a frenzy of dancers, breathless and running from stage to backstage, changing costumes at lightning speed before it’s their turn to go on stage again.

That same wild energy beats through the atmosphere of backstage now, even before the show has started. 

Donghyuck’s heart thumps in his chest so hard he’s convinced at any moment it will jump out and make a run for it. He sits now alone in his private dressing room, staring at his reflection in the lit up mirror. 

When he said that he tends to get nervous just before a show he wasn’t kidding. 

Part of him knows he can do this, and it’s the part he should really be listening to. But waiting in the silence for the show to start, hearing the sounds of the audience filling in slowly, it feels like something is missing.

Or someone.

There’s a knock at the door and Donghyuck almost jumps out of his skin. He breathes and wills his heart to settle before standing, opening the door to find just the person he hoped it would be.

Mark takes him in his arms, pressing his face close to his chest and Donghyuck lets his eyes fall closed, leaning into the touch. Relief blooms in his chest like the sun coming out after a storm and he lingers there for as long as he can.

Mark allows him to do so, drawing circles in his back and letting Donghyuck listen to the gentle beating of his heart. It’s so slow Donghyuck wonders how the boy can be so calm.

He asks just that when they pull apart and step into the privacy of the dressing room again. 

Mark laughs softly and Donghyuck thinks he looks beautiful in his gold-embroidered white blouse and styled dark hair. Like a prince.

“Because I have you,” the boy says shortly, as if it’s that simple. 

Perhaps it is.

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck asks.

“I’m not worried because I know that even when we aren’t dancing together, you’re somewhere side stage, watching.”

“Mark,” Donghyuck sighs, closing the distance between them again, snaking his hands behind Mark’s neck. One of Mark’s hands rests at his lower back and the other over his heart as their eyes meet. 

“It’s beating so hard,” Mark notes, his eyes dropping to Donghyuck’s chest before moving back to his eyes again.

There’s a moment of silence as a concerned look blooms on Mark’s face, and Donghyuck has to steady his breathing to rasp out, “I’m so nervous.”

Mark leans forward then, dissolving the words on Donghyuck’s lips with a gentle kiss. Despite its subtlety it leaves Donghyuck reeling, a new calmness settling in the anxiety’s place. 

“I thought you might be,” Mark says with a sorrowful laugh, brushing a stray curl behind Donghyuck’s ear. “It’s why I brought this.”

Donghyuck eyes Mark’s hand curiously as it leaves his heart and ventures toward his pocket. Shortly after it retrieves a small glinting silver chain. Donghyuck doesn’t recognise it at first, and then he does. 

“You brought my necklace?”  
  
The smile never leaves Mark’s lips as he nods. With careful hands he drapes the chain around Donghyuck’s neck and seals the clasp at the back so it sits against his chest, as it always does.

“How did you get it?” Donghyuck can’t mask his pleasant surprise.

“I asked Renjun to bring it with him today. He managed to grab it when you weren’t looking.”  
  
Donghyuck doesn’t know if he should laugh or cry.

“But...,” he trails off, trying to find his words. Mark waits patiently with a soft look in his eye. “We aren’t allowed to wear jewellery on stage.”

Mark’s hands are once again at Donghyuck’s neck, slowly tucking the chain beneath his costume as he says, “That’s why we can keep it here, out of sight.”

_All dancers to side stage_ , a voice calls over the speaker in the corner of the dressing room.

Donghyuck smiles. And then he kisses Mark again. And then they’re hurrying out the door hand in hand, Donghyuck’s pointe shoes clacking against the concrete floor and a wild heart beating in his chest; for once not with unease but with content; the cold metal of his necklace finding its home against his warm skin.

───── 

Waiting side stage is less scary when he’s with Mark, Donghyuck finds. Their hands are intertwined and every now and then Mark squeezes reassuringly, a reminder that he’s still there. Donghyuck feels better now; less anxious and his head clearer. There’s even an inkling of excitement there too.

_His first performance with the academy, as the lead._ Donghyuck allows the happiness that thought brings him to guide him out onto stage, to carry him through each scene; act; the silence as the audience watches; the stress of costume changes and even the _pas de deux_ , difficult as it is.

It dances with him through the final scene, the ball and the wedding between Désiré and Aurora, the crowning as they are named King and Queen of the Kingdom.

The couple is blessed by the lilac fairy to rule in peace and happiness and those are the exact two emotions Donghyuck feels, blinded by the lights and unable to see anything other than Mark and his sparkling eyes.

The other boy says nothing – and he can’t, because the audience is clapping, the lights fading and the curtains falling, and they have to hold the position as long as they can – but he doesn’t need to. The look on his face says it all.

The stillness breaks when they’re concealed from the audience and every dancer on stage hurries off to prepare for the curtain call at the end. It gives them all a moment to breathe and rehydrate offstage while the audience awaits.

The director is waiting there for them, and doesn’t hesitate to pull Donghyuck and Mark into a crushing hug. The two laugh, and as Donghyuck does he feels elation overtake him, as if he could fly, weightless through the sky.

“You were incredible,” the director exclaims, a proud hand on each of their shoulders. “You should be very proud of yourself, Mark and Donghyuck. You’ve just completed your first professional ballet with the academy.”

The director moves away then to talk to a stressed-looking stage assistant and Donghyuck turns to Mark. They’re both breathless, chests rising and falling and Donghyuck’s feet ache but he doesn’t feel any of it. Not when all he wants to do right now, all he can focus on, is how badly he wants to kiss the boy in front of him. 

“All dancers ready for the encore!” another stagehand calls and Donghyuck knows that it’s his cue as the lead. The large red curtains are lifting again to reveal an audience still on their feet, thousands and thousands of faces clapping ceaselessly.

Donghyuck glides onto stage, taking the centre position and feeling almost out of body as he steps to either side and bows. Flowers fly forth from the audience in a flooding of colour; roses, lilacs, lilies and freesia; bouquets and singular stems that decorate the stage with shades of springtime. 

Donghyuck plucks a singular pink rose from the floor and holds it out for Désiré who joins him a moment later with his own gracious bow. When Mark stands, Donghyuck hands him the flower, which the other boy takes in delicate fingers, a bright smile on his face. 

Donghyuck stands with a proud smile, one he can’t wipe off even as his friends and the rest of the cast join them.

With Mark’s hand in his left and Renjun’s in his right, the ballet takes a collective bow and the applause never stops. 

It’s still ringing in his ears when Donghyuck finds his way backstage.

The halls are filled with excitement, exhaustion and relief, bright expressions dancing on every face. Donghyuck spends a few moments chatting with his friends and other members of the cast, congratulating them and in turn being congratulated himself.

It isn’t until he’s in his dressing room again that he finds silence, although it doesn’t last long because soon there’s a soft knock at the door and a familiar boy with dark hair steps inside.

With adrenaline still overflowing from the performance, Donghyuck can’t think of a single word to say. All he can think to do is to stand and move as close as he can to the other boy until their lips are crashing together, muffling anything Mark might have been intending to say in the process.

A pleasant sigh from the other boy tells Donghyuck he doesn’t mind.

Their lips move against each other effortlessly, as they have done before. But when the back of Donghyuck’s knees find the dressing room table and he falls back onto it, his lips never detaching from Mark’s, he realises there’s something painting the kiss red: passion.

Perhaps it’s the post-performance high, just pure relief, or something else, but Donghyuck finds himself spreading his legs so Mark can step between them, step closer until Donghyuck’s back is pressed against his dressing room mirror and, breathless, Mark’s lips are moving to his neck.

A breathy sound escapes his lips because this is _new._ Mark’s lips have never been before where they are now. 

His chest rises and falls as Mark presses ever closer, his mouth toeing the line between pain and pleasure as he creates marks that will definitely be there tomorrow. 

Donghyuck discovers that he likes it; a reminder that he is Mark’s, and Mark’s is his.

At least in some sense.

In a way that they both feel but have yet to speak out loud. Donghyuck reserves that train of thought for later, when he isn’t slowly falling apart beneath Mark’s touch.

Donghyuck jumps for the second time that day when there’s a harsh knock at the door.

“Donghyuck, it’s time to go! The crew are tidying up!” Renjun’s shouts are muffled through the wooden door but it’s undeniably him. There’s a beat of silence as Donghyuck tries to catch his breath enough to speak. Before he can, Renjun adds, “You too, Mark.”

And just like that, Donghyuck’s evil best friend is gone.

Mark pulls away from Donghyuck’s neck, his hands still splayed on the dresser on either side of Donghyuck’s legs. With a furious blush on his face Donghyuck meets his gaze. What he finds in the other boy’s eyes is an equally intoxicated – _affected_ – look.

He looks cute like this, Donghyuck realises, as he smiles at the peculiarity of it all; with mussed up unruly hair, swollen pink lips and a tint to his cheeks.

“We should probably...,” Mark tries but doesn’t manage to finish. His voice sounds hoarse as he trails off and Donghyuck laughs, nodding as he sits up straight and Mark steps back to help him down.

“We should probably go,” Donghyuck finishes for him, but the smile briefly stiffens when he slides off the counter and his back gives slight protest.

Mark must notice, because soon he’s holding the majority of Donghyuck’s weight until he can stand again. “Your back, is it hurting?”

“Just then but only a little bit,” Donghyuck reassures when he stands upright with no pain this time. “It must be from a few days of dancing.”

“We can rest now,” Mark says, sounding both wistful and relieved. “We did it Donghyuck. The production is over.”

Donghyuck gathers his things as Mark speaks and side by side they leave the dressing room, not without Donghyuck taking a moment to glance at it, to commit it to memory. 

His first performance with his academy, a moment he never wants to forget.

“Whatever will we do with all our time?” Donghyuck muses as they trace the hallways, now empty save for a few crew members here and there, who congratulate them as they pass. Mark laughs at that and they fall into comfortable silence, not needing to answer the question because they both already know.

Donghyuck’s mind wanders back to the intense moment they had shared, and it makes him blush all over again. The heat dissipates when they’re met with the cool evening breeze of spring, as Mark pushes the backstage doors open and they step out onto the street.

The city is as alive with life as ever – the audience, the dancers and members of the academy filling the streets, engrossed in chatter as they head in different directions, no doubt home as the stars begin to show their light in the sky.

Donghyuck can see his friends – Renjun, Jaemin and Jeno – standing nearby with a larger cluster of first years who had come to see the performance. There’s a bouquet of flowers in Renjun’s hands with a small note attached, and Donghyuck hopes he remembers to ask his friend later who they are from.

Jaemin sends him a friendly wave – followed by a warning look that somehow communicates _do not come over here_ – accompanied by suggestive eyes toward Mark. Donghyuck rolls his eyes, prays Mark hasn’t seen and turns to face the other boy.

“Is this the part where we go our separate ways?” Donghyuck asks, and he’s unable to hide the disappointment bleeding into his voice like dark ink.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Mark responds, playing with the delicate chain of Donghyuck’s necklace. 

They’re standing so close that anyone would guess they were a couple, but at some point – perhaps after Donghyuck handed Mark a flower in front of several thousand people – they had both stopped caring. 

Everyone at the academy seemed to know what they were long before either of them did.

“What do you mean?” Donghyuck asks tentatively, even though he has some idea of what Mark means. It’s almost like he’s pinching himself, in a sense. Making sure that this isn’t all just a dream.

“You could come back to my place?”

The question hangs in the air between them for a moment, not because there’s any hesitation on Donghyuck’s part (if the way he had responded in the dressing room is anything to go by). It’s more because the words on Mark’s lips are like a blow to the chest: _this is real._

After a moment, he says, “I would love to.”

And that’s how Donghyuck finds himself in Mark’s arms, walking away from the fairytale theatre he had always dreamed of, the life he’d always imagined for himself, and into the streets of a city that now feels like home.

They talk of sweet nothings as they trace their way back to the academy, Donghyuck basking in the fairy lights that set the trees of the boulevard alight, in the joy on people’s faces as they sip on glasses of wine and laugh with their loved ones.

He basks in the cool springtime breeze and the way it ripples through his hair, the way it tries to cool down the warmth radiating from his heart, from Mark’s, and from their fingertips where they meet in the middle.

Donghyuck would never be able to describe what he had felt in that moment; at least not by any other word than _belonging_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh la la a little spicey spice ! if you liked this chapter, let me know what you thought !!
> 
> thank you for reading and being here with me on this journey, it's so lovely to have you here !! i will see you in the next chapter as always, not many to go now! i hope you are all happy, well and safe 🦋
> 
> if you're interested in seeing aurora's solo form the first act, you can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOpl9nMptPg) with fumi kaneko because she's a stunning aurora and it's lovely to see some diversity in ballet! 
> 
> thank you my dear [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter as always ♡ you are a light and i love you most ardently. 
> 
> find me ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) & [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)


	8. en l'air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to the eighth, and final, chapter, _en l'air_. en l'air simply means in the air.
> 
> the song that goes with this chapter is the debussy's clair de lune ! you can find it on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVmwLJeeOy4) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/5u5aVJKjSMJr4zesMPz7bL?si=J0lBC-HlS4-SCtgM-PbBpQ). there's also an extended (on loop) version of the piece on youtube [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea2WoUtbzuw)!
> 
> thank you so much for all your patience and kindness with this final chapter. I needed to take a break from writing to make sure I wrote something I was proud of, and I'm absolutely delighted to finally share this with you! 
> 
> happy reading, and I'll see you at the end, my loves 🌷

Mark’s dorm room looks different at night.

Where it had been warm and sunny days ago, it’s now pale in the dark. The moon’s cold light filters through the grand windows to dip the bedsheets in silver. 

The feeling in the room matches the one running through Donghyuck’s veins like quicksilver, as if he were a sliver of the moon itself. Mark closes the door behind himself and they turn to face each other.

Donghyuck doesn’t know what to say, and Mark pauses, seemingly thinking. His face is unreadable and pensive for a few moments before his face lights up, a brightness in the dark. 

“I have an idea,” he announces, in a lighthearted way that snaps the tension in two, making Donghyuck smile.

The announcement is a perfect recreation of the last time they were in this very room together, and Mark had another of his many brilliant ideas. The moment tastes sweet on Donghyuck’s tongue as if it were a daydream. Some of the tightness in his chest eases in the silence, although the sense that something hot and unspoken is flickering between them never dims.

“Would you like a drink?” Mark asks as he crosses the room toward the cupboard to retrieve a shining bottle of Moët. Donghyuck whistles and Mark practically beams. “We should celebrate.”

Donghyuck nods and steps closer to examine the beautiful artefact in Mark’s hands. It’s deep green glass glimmers like seaglass at the bottom of the ocean. “I’ve never had Moët before.”

“Neither have I. I’ve been saving it for the right moment.”

The smile never fades from Mark’s pretty lips as he pops the bottle easily and pours two glasses. Donghyuck giggles at that touch; that Mark had been keeping two plastic glasses in his cupboard all this time, probably waiting for this moment. Their plastic nature doesn’t match the opulence of the wine, but somehow that makes it all the more special.

They clink their flutes together and each take a sip. The sour bite of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes lick at Donghyuck’s tongue, competing to be tasted. He can’t tell if he loves or hates the wine, but it’s the thought that counts.

“It’s kind of gross,” Mark admits with a laugh and Donghyuck joins him, glad that he’s not alone in that sentiment.

“What are we celebrating?” Donghyuck inquires as Mark’s attention shifts from the sparkling glass in his hand to Donghyuck in front of him. He steps closer and Donghyuck sucks in a breath instinctively, the small gap between them suddenly feeling too small and too large. 

Mark moves closer, his alcohol-kissed breath fanning over Donghyuck’s neck. 

Donghyuck watches the other boy’s lips move to say, simply: “Us.”

“What do you me–?” Donghyuck starts to ask, but he never finishes that sentence. 

He never finishes it because Mark closes the distance between them with a kiss, capturing Donghyuck’s lips in his, and Donghyuck has to grip the glass in his hand to stop it from spilling over. 

That seems to be the last thing on Mark’s mind because he walks them back toward the wall that Donghyuck’s back soon finds, a soft puff of air escaping his lips. Mark pulls back then, giving Donghyuck a moment to breathe as he takes their glasses responsibly and puts them on the bedside table nearby.

Donghyuck barely notices the absence of his glass, head reeling as it tries to catch up with what’s going on. 

“Is this okay?” Mark asks when he returns, leaning his body weight against Donghyuck’s and pressing close enough for Donghyuck to feel the heat radiating from the other boy’s skin; the taste of champagne on his tongue even when their lips are apart.

“Definitely okay,” Donghyuck murmurs when his mind manages to work again – although not without significant effort. He almost sounds intoxicated but they both know it has little to do with the alcohol. 

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” Mark whispers into the space below Donghyuck’s ear, where he presses a gentle kiss.

“Me too,” Donghyuck admits, feeling heat pool in his stomach and a small amount of embarrassment lick at his chest. He pushes it aside. Donghyuck knows perfectly well that he can always be honest with Mark. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

The confession tumbles from his lips so easily that it’s as if those several words are all Donghyuck has ever wanted to say. Nothing more, nothing less, just between the lines;  _ I want you. _

Mark pulls back from Donghyuck’s ear, where his lips had been tracing shapes into soft skin, to meet Donghyuck’s searching gaze. The other boy’s eyes soften, some of the lust that had been flickering there softening, replaced by a delicate tenderness.

“You have?” Mark asks, taking Donghyuck’s chin delicately in his hand, as if he were studying an artwork. Donghyuck lets him without question, trusting the other boy’s touch. 

He nods softly, never looking away from Mark’s bright eyes. He realises then that his confession had been about much more than sleeping together. 

“The universe has a strange way of working, don’t you think?” Mark says, leaning forward again, but this time his lips aren’t at Donghyuck’s neck but brushing against his own. 

“In what way?” Donghyuck somehow manages to ask into the small space between their mouths. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, too.”

There’s a beat of silence where Mark doesn’t close the distance, and Donghyuck allows the words to wash over him, realising the full gravity of what Mark has said for the first time since they met.

From the depths of Donghyuck’s mind come the words that capture the oddity of it all. “Perhaps, though this be madness, there is method in it.” 

Mark perceptibly pulls back to eye Donghyuck incredulously, and Donghyuck has to bite back his laugh.

“Did you just quote Hamlet?”

“Polonius, actually.” A smile inevitably makes its way to Donghyuck’s face. The words had just felt right.

“God you’re so–” Mark starts.

“So what?” Donghyuck is practically grinning at this point, enjoying every moment. 

“Gorgeous.”

That comes as a surprise and Donghyuck realises he’s lost when he finds himself stunned, a window of opportunity that Mark seizes instantly.

He closes the distance in one swift movement and Donghyuck’s body responds before his mind does, moving against the other boy.

In a way it feels like they’re dancing; the way Donghyuck submits to gravity and his weight against the wall, and Mark holds him up like the roots of a tree – forever his point of connection to the earth, his point of trust. 

In a way this could just be another  _ pas de deux _ , Donghyuck realises _.  _ Perhaps those three small words describe the way the two have always been; eternally in duet together, a dance like the push and pull of the tides, waiting for the right moment to unfold, and for them to be together.

In one swift movement Mark lifts Donghyuck into his arms, holding him as if it were nothing, and walks them carefully toward the bed. He lays Donghyuck down gently, and Donghyuck sinks into the softness of the white sheets, the delicate smile belonging to the boy above him.

Mark cocks his head to the side from where he stands, eyes trailing over Donghyuck’s entire body slowly; no intention to rush. Everywhere they linger it feels like his gaze sets that part of Donghyuck on fire. 

“You look beautiful like this,” Mark notes, his shamelessly affected voice underscored by a note of fondness. Donghyuck blushes, because he doesn’t think he’s ever done anything like this and had it be so romantic; about so much more than pleasure. 

That’s the last thought he has before time becomes a blur, an unfocused and undefined haziness of pleasure and connection as he and Mark dance together through the night, eventually becoming one. 

It starts as the other boy leans down, pinning Donghyuck to the sheets with his body and recapturing his lips in a kiss that would leave Donghyuck breathless if Mark weren’t his source of air. They’re still fully clothed and with time the material barriers between them grow more noticeable. Eventually Donghyuck finds himself wanting more. 

He pulls away from Mark’s lips to unbutton his dress shirt, a choice that earns a small laugh from Mark who proceeds to do the same with Donghyuck’s own buttons. It’s not long before they’re both shirtless, pantless, a tangle of limbs lost in each other’s heat. They’ve been in this little clothing around each other before – in between classes and costume fittings – and yet now it feels so different. 

There’s a sensuality to having Mark’s bare skin against his like this, and Donghyuck finds himself arching his spine under the other boy’s touch, pressing closer in search of more contact wherever he can find it. 

It’s still not enough and so Donghyuck rolls them over in a reversing of positions that surprises Mark – catches him off guard – if his wide eyes are anything to go by. Donghyuck feels a sense of triumph to have managed to put the other boy on the back pedal for once, and makes quick work with straddling his hips and kissing down the length of his neck.

What happens next is something Donghyuck will think about for months. 

Mark  _ moans. _

It’s a breathy sound, a sound of want, elicited when Donghyuck’s lips find a tender spot in the crook between the other boy’s neck and his shoulder. It makes Donghyuck freeze, listening to Mark’s wildly beating heart and wondering if he had heard right.

“Donghyuck,” Mark all but gasp. Curiously, Donghyuck tries again, finding that it elicits the same noise. 

Donghyuck decides then and there that it’s his favourite sound.

“Donghyuck, I...,” Mark tries, but for once he seems to be speechless too. Donghyuck basks in it, trailing his kisses lower and lower until he finds the final division between the two of them, the only thing stopping the sun and the moon from finding each other in the sky. 

Donghyuck’s eyes find Mark’s blown out ones and he waits. The other boy nods firmly and Donghyuck removes his underwear easily, watching Mark as Mark watches him. 

He can’t get a read on the other boy – can only imagine how the cool kiss of the evening air feels on his bare skin – but all he can think is that Mark is nothing short of beautiful. 

His body reminds Donghyuck of a Greek marble statue, a god carved from stone with such beauty to be preserved and worshipped at the altar of a temple.

Donghyuck feels now like the worshiper, and gladly so. In a way, when it comes to the other boy, Donghyuck has always worshipped him. He’s glad to do it again now, to make Mark feel even a fraction of the high that Donghyuck feels every time they dance together. 

Donghyuck licks his lips slowly and takes Mark – all of him – in his mouth. Mark throws his head back and clamps his eyes shut, a hand coming to cover his face (or rather, what Donghyuck realises is a growing blush, spreading furiously like a hasty flower in bloom). 

Donghyuck smiles into the action, moving up and down at an intimate pace that isn’t slow but isn’t rushed either. Much to his delight Mark continues to make similar noises as before, although they grow short and quipped and more desperate with each movement of Donghyuck’s head.

Finally he chokes out, “Donghyuck–” and said boy pulls away, sensing that Mark had been rather rapidly running toward the cliff’s edge of desire, close to falling off it completely if Donghyuck had continued any longer.

Donghyuck takes a moment to catch his breath, moving upward toward Mark who sits up on the bed and takes Donghyuck in his lap with a surprising amount of energy given his previous state. Their chests are flush together and with the taste of Mark on his tongue, Donghyuck feels lightheaded in the best possible way.

“Donghyuck, is there anything you aren’t good at?” Mark genuinely asks, and Donghyuck blushes, secretly beaming at the compliment. 

“There’s nothing I’m unwilling to do for you,” Donghyuck says, and it’s supposed to be some sort of joke but it holds too much truth to go unnoticed. Instead, it hangs in the air between them as they stare into each other’s eyes.

Mark looks like he’s about to say something but Donghyuck doesn’t know if he can handle it; if in this moment he can bear the weight of any more truth. 

He cuts Mark off with two short words: “Kiss me.”

───── 

It feels just like a dance when Donghyuck lies naked on the soft sheets – feeling warmer than ever despite the cool night’s breeze – and Mark hovers over him, his eyes taking every inch of him in. Donghyuck loves to watch him do so, because it feels like Mark is trying to commit him to memory. As if, at any moment, Donghyuck might slip away.

It feels like a dance when Mark recaptures his lips, when he spreads his legs softly and lays his weight between them, murmuring sweet words into Donghyuck’s ear as his heart pounds in his chest and butterflies flutter in his stomach.

He’s ready physically – Mark made careful work of that – but he’s also ready mentally. In a sense he’s always been waiting for them to cross the realm of physical boundaries and find each other in the waves of pleasure, allowing their souls to intertwine and perhaps never unravel again.

“Are you ready, my love?” Mark asks, his voice soft and sweet in the night. If Donghyuck was ready before he’s certainly  _ ready _ now. Those two simple words seem to undo him completely. 

Mark is as careful as ever, gentle and just as tender; always a tender lover. He asks Donghyuck if he’s alright every step of the way. He does so when he enters for the first time, and Donghyuck can do nothing but nod firmly because words escape him at the feeling.

It’s both pain and pleasure; an intoxicating mix. It starts in his stomach and blooms outward like heat radiating through every inch of muscle and stretch of bone. And where their two bodies are now connected, Donghyuck knows the same heat spreads through Mark, setting them both alight.

When Mark is completely in he pauses and they both take a needed moment to breathe. Donghyuck tries to adjust to the new sensation, to the overwhelming experience of being so impossibly close to the other boy.

Donghyuck opens his eyes, not even realising they had closed, and when he does he meets the gaze of the boy above him. Mark’s hair is messy and his brow is furrowed with the effort of restraint. His lips are pink and swollen but his eyes remain soft as ever. Donghyuck feels warmth reach his chest and he smiles easily.

“I love you, Mark.”   
  
The words slip out like a river’s current running fast but Donghyuck doesn’t regret them. He hadn’t meant to say them now but that doesn’t mean he didn’t mean them. 

To Donghyuck’s surprise, Mark doesn’t look taken aback at all. Instead, the softness in his eyes spreads to the rest of his features and he smiles.

“I love you too, Donghyuck.”   
  
Something swells in Donghyuck’s chest, like the tide rising and the waves surging to crash against the shore, to wash away what was there and replace it with something new. 

Donghyuck knows with certainty that this is about more than just lust and desire. 

They just said it themselves. It’s love. 

───── 

Donghyuck presses his weight off the mattress and finds Mark’s lips, so familiar by now. 

Donghyuck angles his hips upward as Mark starts to move downward too, pulling back to create space and then rolling forward, filling Donghyuck up completely in one movement. They can’t keep up the kissing for long, even though they want to, because it soon becomes breathless. Sounds of pleasure escape Donghyuck’s lips as he slowly falls apart. 

Noises that resemble Mark’s earlier ones tumble forth from his lips and he falls backward, his back finding the sheets. Mark holds him steady, to ground him through the waves of pleasure that crash over his body.

Mark’s pace increases although it’s never rushed. It’s deliriously unhurried and soon Donghyuck is seeing stars, as his own desire rises inside of him and sharpens to a knife’s point. A feeling like wildfire runs along Donghyuck’s body and he knows he’s close. 

Mark must feel the same because his rhythm loses its song and slowly becomes disjointed. Soon he’s groaning, and that sound is all it takes to send Donghyuck over the edge, rushing toward climax with nothing to hold him back

“Mark–” Donghyuck calls out, hoping the other boy understands what he means just by the call of his name.

“I know, baby,” Mark whispers into his chest where his head rests. His voice is clear and resonates through the night, it’s strength and composure surprising Donghyuck, because Mark looks like a star that’s about to explode, to shatter into pieces that Donghyuck only hopes he can put back together.

Waves of orgasm burst over him as he moans breathlessly into Mark’s shoulder, feeling the pulsing of his heart there as he calls out too, his hips eventually coming to a stop.

They both lie there for a while, a tangle of two warm bodies with two hearts, beating together in perfect time. 

For a moment Donghyuck is somewhere else, floating through the sky like a weightless flower in the wind. But Mark is there too, Donghyuck can feel him, and they’re waltzing hand in hand as they glide through the clouds. 

Donghyuck isn’t sure how long they lay there like that. Eventually Mark lifts his weight gently and moves to Donghyuck’s side, pulling the blankets over their bodies and snuggling in close to Donghyuck’s side. Said boy is still laying there, slowly coming down from his high. 

“Are you alright?” Mark perches on his elbow to ask, eyes concerned as they rake over Donghyuck’s frame. 

Donghyuck nods, finally opening his eyes again. He’s met with the white ceiling of Mark’s room, no longer littered with a galaxy of stars. There’s a lightness dancing in his chest – an ease, or some sense of release. “Definitely alright.”

Donghyuck turns toward Mark and presses himself into the other boy’s warm chest, not minding the way it’s slightly damp from the exertion. 

“That was something else,” Donghyuck murmurs into his skin, eyes sleepily falling closed after a short lived battle to keep them open. 

Donghyuck can hear the smile in Mark’s voice when he agrees. “It was amazing.”

Silence falls, and in it Donghyuck finds some new kind of peace; it feels different, almost like an old friend returning. Something that has always been waiting.

Donghyuck hears Mark’s breathing slow, falling heavy, and he allows his own to do the same. For a moment his mind lingers on the words they spoke to each other earlier, so raw like liquid honesty flowing from their hearts into words.

Donghyuck lets it go, knowing that if he thinks about it for too long he will lie awake all night. 

Instead, he curls even closer to Mark’s warmth. Slowly but surely, his mind drifts away from its thoughts, taking tentative steps toward the land of dreams that lies ahead.

_ Tomorrow _ , is the last thing he thinks, before sleep finally reaches down with gentle fingers to carry him away _. _

───── 

When Donghyuck wakes it feels like the first day of summer. 

With his eyes closed, Donghyuck can feel the sun’s golden heat on his skin, keeping his bare body warm beneath the thin sheets. He opens his eyes slowly, rising from a peaceful sleep to find Mark’s apartment bathed in amber.

The windows are open and a bird chirps happily on the sill, making Donghyuck smile. With a lightness in his chest he turns to his side to find the bed empty, but a wave of his hand over the warm mattress soothes his concerns.

“Good morning,” the voice comes, and Donghyuck raises his gaze to find Mark leaning against his counter with a warm smile, watching Donghyuck from across the room. 

“Have you been awake long?” Donghyuck asks, sitting up and rubbing at his sleepy eyes. He can hear Mark walking toward him. Soon the mattress dips as Mark sits on its edge, a hand coming to brush Donghyuck’s hair out of his eyes.

“Not long,” Mark’s voice is even more soothing in the morning. “I was just making us tea.”

Donghyuck looks up to realise Mark is still shirtless, wearing a pair of grey sweatpants. There are two mugs of steaming tea on the counter. It’s all so simple and yet Donghyuck finds himself chuckling softly at the sweetness of it all.

“Did you sleep well?” Mark asks, a soft look on his face. His brown eyes are glimmering in the morning light, and Donghyuck thinks that if he were able to paint, then he would be searching for his brushes to paint this moment right here. 

Mark’s hand finds Donghyuck’s cheek, cupping it gently. Into his palm, Donghyuck murmurs, “I think that was the best sleep I’ve had in months.” 

Mark laughs softly. Donghyuck had meant it, though. With the stress of practicing and rehearsing, performing and his injury, quality sleep had been few and far between. “I’m glad,” Mark says, his hand eventually leaving Donghyuck’s face, much to his dismay. The dark haired boy stands again, moving toward the counter and lifting their two mugs in his hands. “Come, we should talk.”

Something shifts in the atmosphere between them. Donghyuck finds his underwear somewhere on the floor and pulls them on before following Mark to a small table by the open window. Outside he can see blue sky, can see birds flying in the morning light, but his focus remains on Mark, who sits before him and waits patiently.

“Donghyuck,” Mark starts, as Donghyuck takes a sip of his tea prematurely, almost burning his tongue in the process. He’s quick to put it down and meet Mark’s gaze. 

The other boy must have noticed because he looks fondly amused this time. “I think we should talk about us.” 

“You’re right,” Donghyuck responds. They both know that this conversation has been a long time coming, and after the events of last night, it’s essentially inescapable. There’s also no need to run from it any longer, as if it were some difficult conversation to have. That isn’t the case. It’s clear how they both feel. They just need to put it to words for the first time since they met. 

Since the moment they fell in love, Donghyuck thinks.

Mark pauses, thinking, and Donghyuck does so too.  _ How should they start this? _ He isn’t sure what to say for a while, and Mark gives him space to think. But then a thought comes to mind, and he decides to follow it curiously to its end.

“Was there anyone before me?” Donghyuck asks, taking Mark by surprise slightly. The other boy sets down his mug on the glass table, his fingers lingering at the handle thoughtfully.

Mark is quiet for a few moments, processing what Donghyuck asked. Then he looks up, his fingers stilling at the handle. His eyes are no longer wide but clear; so clear that Donghyuck feels that if he were to look closer, he would see into Mark’s soul.

Mark says, clear as day, “No, no one.”

“How come?” Donghyuck asks, still curious. There had been no one before, and that fascinates him. Mark is beautiful, talented, kind and clever – why would there be no one else? Not before the academy?

Donghyuck’s thoughts are interrupted when Mark continues to speak. His brow is more furrowed with thought this time. But then the look softens and Mark leans closer, taking Donghyuck’s idle hand in his own. The frown is gone and his face is delicate as he seeks out Donghyuck’s eyes.

“I think I was waiting,” Mark says, his eyes searching Donghyuck’s face for something. All he can do is listen, with the beginnings of a small fluttering in his heart. “For as long as I can remember, the only thing on my mind was dance. I knew in my heart that I would just wait. I didn’t feel the need to rush into a relationship with anyone. I knew that the right person would come along.”

As Mark says the last few words, it’s clear they’re for Donghyuck, and Donghyuck only.

“When I saw you, that day in the studio when the teacher asked me to help out with the first years,” – Donghyuck blushes as he remembers the way Mark had looked at him that day, the way everyone had looked at him – “I knew you were who I had been waiting for.”

“I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but I just did.”

Donghyuck feels breathless. His heart beats,  _ stops _ , and then tries again, as if it were relearning to breathe. His mind is spinning and his chest is fluttering, so much so that he doesn’t even notice Mark’s hand delicately tracing shapes into the skin of his palm.

And then the pieces fall into place. Suddenly it all makes sense. Donghyuck can see it clearer than a reflection of the sky on water. “Why do I feel like I was doing the same?” he asks. “Why was it always you, Mark? Ever since that day I saw you dance on television; it’s always been you.”

Mark’s eyes soften into crescent moons, something warm and bright blooming in them like chrysanthemums. 

As Donghyuck leans across the table to kiss the sparkly-eyed boy, not minding the way the glass table presses against his hip bones, he feels a part of something larger. As if he’s just a character, and Mark is too, in a greater story about two destined lovers.

As if every time two flames find each other in this great world, they tell the same story; with their words, their bodies, their lips. And he and Donghyuck are just dancers in the ballet of love, performing their parts until they finally reach the end, where the two lovers close the distance between them forever.

It feels right, that thought. That he and Mark are lovers. He likes the way the word sounds. 

“Mark, what are we?”

Mark smiles, a knowing look in his eye as he studies Donghyuck’s face. His eyes linger just a moment longer on Donghyuck’s lips. 

“I think we both know.”

Donghyuck smiles too. It’s true. “Let’s give it a name, though,” he urges, wanting to finally reach the end of writing this story between the two of them. 

“Well then,” Mark starts, with a ridiculous smile on his face as he stands, both of their cups of tea long forgotten, moving to kneel in front of Donghyuck in his chair. 

Donghyuck laughs a little too hard at the other boy’s dramatic antics, but he understands it. There’s something so joyful about this morning. It’s infectious. 

“Donghyuck Lee, will you be my boyfriend?”

Mark asks it like it’s the greatest honour in the world, and perhaps it is. If you ask Donghyuck, he would agree. 

Donghyuck looks down at the boy in front of him, shirtless and dipped in gold, looking more like a dancer now than ever. “I would love to be your boyfriend, Mark,” Donghyuck says with a hint of laughter in his voice, but Mark understands him perfectly. “And you, mine.” Mark nods, smiling as he stands and pulls Donghyuck up with him. Gently and with equal strength Mark lifts Donghyuck into his arms, spinning him around the room too fast, causing Donghyuck to cling to Mark for dear life. 

Mark eventually puts him down and they hug; a tender embrace as they listen to each other’s hearts. Donghyuck strains his ears to hear Mark’s, to hear his own. He smiles when he realises he can’t – that they’re one in the same, beating perfectly in sync. 

───── 

It’s an early Monday morning when the alarm goes off, waking Donghyuck and Mark abruptly from their peaceful sleep. Donghyuck groans, pushing his weight onto his elbows to side eye Mark, who’s flat on his stomach and still half-asleep.

“Mark, we have to get up,” Donghyuck prods, pawing at his boyfriend lazily. “We have class.”

It takes some time but Mark eventually rolls out of bed, surprisingly slow in the morning for someone normally so sharp. Donghyuck laughs the whole time until Mark is finally  _ awake _ awake, enough to get dressed and ready for class.

They spent the rest of the weekend together, mostly in Mark’s dorm room, catching up on sleep and downtime. It felt good to goof around for a while, to rest their bodies and watch movies instead of train. But just like a bird longing for its song, Donghyuck’s body had started to miss the movement, and Mark’s too. So it’s with a certain excitement that morning that they get ready for another semester of classes. 

Donghyuck hadn’t planned to stay in Mark’s room though. That part had been a spontaneous decision, one that needed no convincing on Mark’s part and just a few hasty texts to Renjun. 

And so Donghyuck finds himself wearing Mark’s dance clothes to class instead of his own. Whilst they’re similar sizes and it shouldn’t be a problem, it is, because now Donghyuck is wearing one of Mark’s famous black leotards instead of the standard white academy one.

Donghyuck laughs about that to himself as they leave the dorm room to head to the studio. He still hasn’t asked Mark about the black leotard phenomen, and hopes he remembers to do so next time, since he always seems to forget.

And just like clockwork, something  _ does  _ distract him. 

For the umpteenth time that morning, Mark’s hand finds his. It’s no longer tentative, with the unfamiliarity of first kisses or touches. It’s confident and intimate and far from shy. That alone makes Donghyuck smile, but the smile stays when his gaze trails from their intertwined hands to Mark’s beautiful face.

He looks delicate in the morning light, kissed yellow by the sun and something else; something new. Mark reminds Donghyuck a little of a flower opening its petals for the first time, delayed not by inability but patience for the right moment.

Mark meets his eyes. They crinkle into half moons, two slivers of light.

He says nothing, and Donghyuck doesn’t either. There’s some shared sentiment in their gaze, as the hallways and students and noises fall away, leaving Donghyuck alone with only the golden boy and a white magnolia tree.

They eventually reach the studio and Donghyuck has to anchor himself back to the moment. The building is bustling with life the same way it always is – with excited dancers and eager teachers – and Donghyuck breathes in the new found familiarity of it all.

“It feels a bit like home, doesn’t it?” Mark remarks, his eyes not meeting Donghyuck’s as he gazes over the hallway of glass studios. The other boy always manages to steal the words right out of Donghyuck’s mouth. 

“You’re right,” Donghyuck agrees, his expression softening. “It really does.”

Donghyuck catches sight of a familiar head of lilac hair, standing beside a head of now-fading blue hair and another head of brunette. Donghyuck watches fondly as they disappear into the farthest studio from Donghyuck and Mark – the one they were in that fated first day.

The notes of Debussy’s most famous piece – Donghyuck’s favourite by him – flow from beyond the walls of the distant studio. Piano notes that are tentative, soft and delicate as they dance forth, telling a tale of  _ clair de lune. _

He and Mark reach the glass wall that separates him from his friends and the other first years, and Mark turns to face him. Donghyuck realises, with a sudden bashfulness he had thought was long gone, that Mark is still holding his hand.

“I guess this is where we say goodbye,” Mark says, in an adorably dramatic tone, although there’s some element of truth to it. It’s been some days since they were last apart, and Donghyuck had grown so used to Mark’s presence that he would think it had been even longer. Almost as if Mark is another part of him, an extension of himself.

“I guess so,” Donghyuck singsongs back, a warm feeling humming like a bee in his chest. Mark is smiling too and it looks gorgeous on him, Donghyuck thinks. The overwhelming desire to kiss him, just like they had that day in the studio, rises inside Donghyuck like a flame with no promise of dying out.

He does his best to quell it once he realises there’s another pair of eyes on him. Actually, many pairs of eyes. Donghyuck turns his gaze inside the studio to find Renjun, Jeno and Jaemin with matching expressions of smugness as their eyes flash from Donghyuck to Mark to their hands.

Donghyuck turns back to Mark with a bit more colour to his cheeks. “Goodbye, Mark.”

“Goodbye, Donghyuck,” Mark says, stooping closer to place the ghost of a kiss on Donghyuck’s cheek. “I have to go to class now, but I’ll see you soon.”

Something excited and hopeful sparkles in the depths of Mark’s warm eyes – something akin to an idea. Donghyuck lets his fingers go as the other boy turns away and wanders down the hall and into another studio.  _ What could Mark possibly have planned _ ? Donghyuck wonders, with a newfound excitement for the day ahead. 

He sighs, supposing that’s a question only later Donghyuck will get an answer to. For now, his primary focus is getting to class.

Donghyuck adjusts the strap of his dance bag over his shoulder, where it digs into the black and distinctly  _ Mark Lee _ leotard. The feeling of the studio floor beneath his feet is familiar as he steps into the studio. Debussy’s piano is no longer tentative but now cathartic, expressing a feeling of longing and release.

Donghyuck’s fond gaze finds his friends stretching in the centre of the room. He drops his bag to the side and moves to join them. As he approaches Renjun lifts his head from his seated position in centre splits, wearing his characteristic smirk.

“You didn’t come home last night,” his friend says, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes, now familiar with Renjun’s teasing. “Or the night before that.”

Jaemin and Jeno glance up but there’s no surprise in their faces. Clearly they knew as well, but Donghyuck can’t blame them. He’s sure that the entire academy has their eyes on him and Mark at this point. 

“Good morning to you too, Junnie,” Donghyuck says instead, finding any desire to argue back dying in his throat when his friend stands and he meets his eyes.

Renjun reminds Donghyuck so much of the first day he arrived at the academy; stepping inside the buildings that personified his dreams. Renjun reminds him too of everything that came after, and so a warmth blossoms in his chest as he gazes at his friend. 

Renjun must sense it too. His expression shifts, some of the mirth melting from his eyes. He must be able to see something in Donghyuck that not even Donghyuck can see.

“I’m really happy for you, Donghyuck,” Renjun says. 

The words catch Donghyuck by surprise – he isn’t sure what he had expected – but he lets them sink in. He thinks and eventually finds the words to respond. The ones that just feel right.

“Me too, Renjun.” 

His friend smiles, Jaemin and Jeno too, having overheard. There’s a sense of understanding, of some shared bond, and Donghyuck wonders then if the heart can be in multiple places, because he feels just as at home right here.

A man Donghyuck hasn’t seen before enters the room with an air of experience and authority, no doubt their new teacher, and all the students stand to attention.

Even as he and his friends shift their focus to the new presence in the room, to the words that announce the upcoming term of classes and the expectations that they bring, the warm feeling never leaves Donghyuck’s chest.

It feels just like the nervous excitement he had brought with him when he stepped into the academy all those months ago, and yet it’s just as different. As if it were the same feeling twisted into a new shape, a flower with more petals and colour. Perhaps there’s even one for every friend he’s made and lover he’s met since he started at the academy.

_ Clair de lune  _ fades and is replaced by a brighter piece. The barres are brought to the centre of the room and like clockwork the dancers find their places among the wooden rows. 

Donghyuck’s hand runs over the smooth surface of the wood, feeling it’s familiar curves and edges, until his hand settles. In time with the music Donghyuck begins to plié. 

He loses himself in the bends and turns, in the gentle sway of his own body in sync with everyone else, like a field of flowers at dawn. His mind is somewhere else, chasing a phantom feeling; something like running beneath the clouds.

Donghyuck hears a soft voice. Words whispered in the sky where he dances, meant only for him. 

_ “I think I was waiting,” _ the voice says. It’s deep and gentle and familiar. _ “When I saw you, that day in the studio when the teacher asked me to help out with the first years, I knew you were who I had been waiting for.” _

Donghyuck smiles, turning to the other side of the barre. His gaze finds the window. Golden sunlight filters through and the kiss of summer blooms outside, a watercolour painting of lilac, emerald and indigo. A single magnolia flower drifts past, and Donghyuck watches it float delicately on the current.

_ “I couldn’t tell you how I knew, but I just did.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _the end 🦋_
> 
> thank you so much for reading this story, and for coming along on this journey with me! _aurora_ was a delight to write, and although there were some hard moments, I'm so proud of this story and our beautiful ballet dancers mark and donghyuck! I feel very attached to these boys and hope you enjoyed watching them grow too! ☀️
> 
> if you want to watch a pianist serenade an eighty-year-old elephant with _clair de lune_ then you can find the video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qQOGCyRbY)! highly recommend if you're looking for a smile!
> 
> thank you cara [macka](https://twitter.com/fiddlestyyx) for beta-ing this chapter as always 💗the final chapter! what a journey, hey?
> 
> i hope you are all happy, well and safe. you're in my thoughts always. gosh I love you all so much – thank you for just being here with me ! I will see you in the next adventure! 
> 
> lots of love, ophelia 🌷🌿✨
> 
> (or, for now, come find me ! preferably on the internet !! ♡ [twitter](https://twitter.com/ophelialilies) and [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/ophelialilies)!)


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